NUMERIC-SORT will actually work for me. Currently I'm on Firebird 2.0.3 and will have to upgrade to 2.5 to get this feature that I didn't realized existed.

Thanks for the help and pointing me in the right direction.

--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, Paul Vinkenoog <paul@...> wrote:
>
> Philippe wrote:
>
> > > No, we don't have that ;-)
> > hum, I think we have
> > http://firebirdsql.org/rlsnotesh/rlsnotes25.html#rnfb25-intl-numsort
>
> Yes, but that's not what the OP wants, based on his example. What we call NUMERIC-SORT is often called natural sort. I gave an example of this ordering in my reply. What the OP wants differs from NUMERIC-SORT (natural sort) in two ways:
>
> 1) He wants to sort numerals lexicographically, not by their numerical value.
> 2) He wants all pure numerals first, followed by the values that also contain alpha characters.
>
> At least, that's how his example is ordered.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Paul Vinkenoog
>