Natural sort sql. Heres is one super simple trick to naturally order in these cases. 1. sql postgresql types sql-order-by natural-sort edited Mar 23, 2012 at 20:53 Erwin Brandstetter 670k 160 1. And as you can see it's not sorting naturally on the last number of the Step (as you or I would imagine it would be sorted in any other situation). Known implementations that support naturally sorting collations: Normative References What is a reasonably flexible, reasonably generic, reasonably efficient, approach to implementing a natural sort algorithm for SQL? Weighing the pros and cons, which is the best approach? Some languages support natural sorting function e. 1 1. , PHP provides the natsort () function that sorts an array using natural sorting algorithm. Version is character varying, with values such as the following (un-ordered). If using PL/SQL instead of xmltable to split string into rows the response time reduces to 0. This is of course because it's stored as a string. The ORDER BY clause is used in MySQL for sorting the data objects in MySQL. I assume your column type is STRING (CHAR, VARCHAR, etc) and sorting procedure is sorting it as a string. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets. Alpha Numeric Sorting in MySQL Given input 1A 1a 10A 9B 21C 1C 1D Expected output 1A 1C 1D 1a 9B 10A 21C In this tip we look at how to create a CLR function in SQL Server to sort text data. The challenge is that standard SQL sorting treats values as simple text, so "10" comes before "2" because "1" comes before "2". We want to sort them the way a person would. This is fine, but it seems more "natural" to me to create a new collating sequence. Custom Sort in SQL ORDER BY Clause Custom sorting allows us to define the order in which data is presented, tailored to specific needs. For anyone wondering about performance, this is notably slower than python's native sort. 4sec for the same 1000 rows. More inefficient, but very easy to get a repeatable sort. Strings are sorted in alphabetical order, while numbers are treated in a way such that, for example, `10` is greater than `2`, whereas in other forms of sorting, `2` would be greater than `10`, just like `z` is greater than `ya`. 25 -50x slower. 今回の事件は、PostgreSQLでの自然ソートがテーマだ。どうやら、数字と文字が混じったデータを、人間が見て分かりやすい順番に並べたいらしい。例えば、「Foo 2」と「Foo 10」があったら、「Foo 2」を先にしたい、ってことだな。この事件の容疑者、いや、主な解決策はいくつかある。それぞれの I am working on the SQL query in which I want to sort the string on the basis of numbers. In this tutorial, you will learn about some natural sorting techniques in MySQL using the ORDER BY clause. sql sql-server-2008 natural-sort edited Feb 5, 2013 at 5:56 Lieven Keersmaekers 58. How to Implement Natural Sorting in MySQL A Workaround to Support Natural Sorting in MySQL Several times in the last few projects I’ve built, I’ve come across the need to sort alphanumeric rows in a database by number (i. 1. The following query performs natural sort of 100 random alpha-numeric strings (note: it produces wrong results in Oracle 11. For example, to sort by type of animal in ascending order, then by birth date within animal type in descending order (youngest animals first), use the following query: Sorting in Text and Number column vb. net NATURAL SORT Asked 13 years, 8 months ago Modified 13 years, 8 months ago Viewed 1k times Have a look at them: Alpha Numeric Sorting in MySQL Natural Sorting in MySQL Sorting of numeric values mixed with alphanumeric values mySQL natural sort Natural Sort in MySQL Edit: I have just added the code of each link for future visitors. Show you how to use SQLite ORDER BY clause to sort the result set using a single column, multiple columns in ascending and descending order. Mar 30, 2022 · In this tutorial, we will study natural sorting in MySQL. 10. 2k 1. Explore an example with real data and the ORDER BY clause for efficient data sorting! SELECT * FROM @Table ORDER BY LEN(Name), Name This sorting is simple, first sort by length of Name then by Name. A protip by filipekiss about mysql and natural sorting. 9k 15 118 151 Generate a sort key for natural ordering. SQL Lesson 4: Filtering and sorting Query results Even though the data in a database may be unique, the results of any particular query may not be – take our Movies table for example, many different movies can be released the same year. How can I implement a “natural sort” order-by in a SQL query using REGEXP_LIKE ? e. Recently a reader asked me how to sort an alpha numeric field in SQL in natural order. Natural sorting is a common need, and while it's straightforward in application code, doing it efficiently in a database like PostgreSQL can be a bit tricky. Given this data: W18-40461 W19-1040 W20-4617 W20-100 I've tried several of the common natural sorting methods for mysql, but they won't sort these in a natural descending way, like: W20-4617 W20- In this article, we will look at different ways you can use SQL code to sort and order data along with several examples. ). It depends on how the application is configured on the front-end for the customer. '? Thanks. This function produces a key that allows strings containing numbers to be sorted in a human-readable order. Can anyone lend me a hand as to what I should append to my ORDER BY statement to sort these values naturally: 1 10 2 22 20405-109 20405-101 20404-100 X Z D Ideally I'd like something along the lin This article explains how to achieve custom sorting in SQL using the ORDER BY CASE method, with step-by-step instructions and examples. order a set of alpha numeric data to appear as: Season 1, Season 2, Seaso Discover effective strategies to optimize natural sorting in MySQL and improve the performance of your queries. Suppose I have an Employee object with name , age and date of joining , sorting by what is natural ordering ? I have a sorting issue in postgres in a column with values such as version. g 1000). In native Excel, you can add multiple sorting columns to return the ASCII code for each character, but if the character is a number, then add a large number to the code (e. On using ORDER BY NAME, it Anyone have a good resource or provide a sample of a natural order sort in C# for an FileInfo array? I am implementing the IComparer interface in my sorts. g. 2. I have one column (Column Name is Name) table in which there are multiple fields. For example Natural sort in SQL Server. Discover how to master Natural Sorting in MySQL with practical tips and examples to optimize your queries and improve the performance of your database. I have a column named file_id. Oct 27, 2025 · Home Oracle / PL/SQL / SQL Natural Sort in SQL Natural Sort in SQL To sort strings in SQL is fairly straightforward: select * from mytable order by name; This uses the default collation which is at its core based on a character-by-character comparison, which almost always matches what humans would consider to be the “right” order – unless decimal numbers are found, in which case this Nov 4, 2025 · Explore effective SQL techniques to achieve natural sorting for alphanumeric columns, covering various database solutions and custom function implementations. When it does c The SQL ORDER BY The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the result-set in ascending or descending order. Natural sorting is ordering values the way a human would. Second ordering gives correct order between number in the same magnitude (0-9) (10-99) (100-999) and so on. Your file name is constant and only number part changed, so "5", "1" and "2" are "before "10" based on length. Thank you for taking time to read all this, its a lot! Appreciate all you fellow enthusiasts! How to natural sort? ie. sort float numbers as a natural numbers in SQL Server Asked 9 years, 8 months ago Modified 8 years, 7 months ago Viewed 1k times I've tried to implement natural sorting with LINQ to Entities, using the equivalent of this SQL statement: ORDER BY case when name like '[0-9]%' then 1 else 0 end, name My LINQ query is: query. Boost your database! Learn to master natural sorting in MySQL with this definitive guide that will help you optimize your queries and improve the performance of your database. When I do an order by it sorts strings such as 1 1 10 100 11 11 110 114 12 300 31 4200 B14 B170 B18 edit: I would How can I select the bottom X rows of a table, based on natural order? I can't do "ORDER BY DESC", since I'm not ordering it by any column number I'm using Sql Server 2008 R2. Sometime when using SQL to order some data it doesn't sort correctly. break the strings into tokens of all letters or all numbers, and sort them either alphabetically or numerically respectively, with the leftmost tokens being the most significant sorting term. Learn how to use SQL ORDER BY clause with 7 practical query examples. In this tutorial, you have learned how to use some techniques to perform natural sorting in MySQL. i. For example, to sort by type of animal in ascending order, then by birth date within animal type in descending order (youngest animals first), use the following query: You simply need to tell SQL something is a number to activate the number sorting algorithms. For example, "a2" comes before "a10" while a simple minded character-by-character comparison would put "a10" before "a2". First, the PG solutions all seem to define a new SQL function that returns a sort key. Things get complicated when you have a mixture of letters and numbers that need natural sorting, but lets not go there. Normal order: Model::orderBy('text') 'value 1' 'value 12' 'value 23' 'value 3 The `NATURAL_SORT_KEY` function is used for sorting that is closer to natural sorting. And if you want to always sort [elm1, elm2, Elm2, elm2] as [elm1, Elm2, elm2, elm2] reliably (caps before lower), then you can simply call natural_sort (sorted (lst)). The main time consumer is xmltable that splits text into rows. Like I mentioned, piece of cake in . Is it possible to have these numbers sort naturally? Perhaps ordering by a 'split' pseudo-column consisting of the split of Step_Id by '. 9 How do I sort in natural. S2F3 S12F0 i. 2): The problem with the union is that this sort isn't the first level sort. Oct 23, 2025 · SQL Server natural sort function. 2 1. @foo foo foo1foo2foo10foo100Rather thanfoo1foo10foo100foo2@foo foo The function natural_sort_key allows sorting strings that contain numbers in a more natural way. Natural Sort Order Forum – Learn more on SQLServerCentral The ORDER BY clause sorts data returned by a query in the SQL Server Database Engine. e. I have a VARCHAR column in a SQL Server 2000 database that can contain either letters or numbers. In this article we look at using the ORDER BY clause with TSQL statements and different ways ORDER BY can be used in SQL Server. 今回はMySQLでの「自然順ソート」、つまり人間にとって直感的に分かりやすい順番に並べ替える方法についてだね。例えば、ゲームのタイトルなんかで「Final Fantasy 10」が「Final Fantasy 2」より後に来てほしい、みたいな時に使うワザなんだ。 How can i get 'natural order' in 'Eloquent ORM'? In table I have column 'text' (string). The first sort is by Property Name, and this sort is by Unit Number (typically numeric but could be A,B,C,) Unioning would throw a lot off MySQL Natural Sorting What is Natural Sorting? Natural sorting is a way of sorting alphanumeric values in the way humans expect rather than lexicographically. Sep 30, 2008 · MySQL doesn't allow this sort of "natural sorting", so it looks like the best way to get what you're after is to split your data set up as you've described above (separate id field, etc), or failing that, perform a sort based on a non-title element, indexed element in your db (date, inserted id in the db, etc). 0. The sort order isn’t guaranteed to be consistent for values of different data types in semi-structured data, such as an array that contains elements of different data types. I am new to oracle and I have a problem. Learn how to sort SQL query results in ascending or descending order. What you need to do is to convert value into numeric value. entry1, entry2, entry3, etc. SELECT * FROM … ORDER BY NATURAL_SORT_KEY(text_col) Related Standard SQL uses collations to specify how strings are to be sorted. 3k What's the easiest way to get a LINQ query (from an SQL database - does that matter?) to order strings naturally? For example, I'm currently getting these results: Project 1 Project 10 Project 2 W You can sort on multiple columns, and you can sort different columns in different directions. NET if you implement IComparable, but I don't know how (or if) you can do that sort of thing in SQL You can sort on multiple columns, and you can sort different columns in different directions. To sort alphanumeric values is unique. Ultimately, I wrote a scalar CLR function in C# to allow for a natural sort, and even with unoptimized code the performance calling it from SQL Server is blindingly fast. 3 1. What is meant by natural ordering . 4 and it works in 12. jahths, dp9v, t18ho, 93msw, dzbv, me1j, govphz, u2n6p, nuzni, hfb7t,