Question

I have a column in a SQL Server table that has the following rows:

MyColumn : C1_xxx1,C2_xxx1,C3_xxx1,C1_xxx2,C1_xxx3,C3_xxx2 etc

It is a text column that contains strings that have the following format: CY_mystring where Y is a number from 1 to 5, followed by the ‘_’ character then mystring that can have any value.

Is there a way to make a select return this column ordered as following:

C1_xxx1
C1_xxx2
C1_xxx3
......
C1_xxxn
C2_xxx1
......
C2_xxxn
C3_xxx1
.......
C3_xxxn

etc

Ordered by the CY_ substring.

thank you

Answer 1

This should do it .. (order first by the first two chars, and then by the last char (assuming that the final n is always one digit long))

SELECT
   Column1
FROM
   TABLENAME
ORDER BY
   LEFT(Column1,2) ASC, 
   RIGHT(Column1,1) ASC