Question

I have a column named Code that is varchar(3).

It contains numbers and strings as well. For example: ' 1', '234', 'Xxx', '9 ','Aa ' etc.

Is there way -just like in MS EXCEL- ORDER anything that looks like a number, as a number?

So that output for the given example above will be:

1. 1 
2. 234 
3. 9 
4. Aa 
5. Xxx

Answer 1

ORDER BY CASE WHEN ISNUMERIC(YourField) = 1 THEN CONVERT(INT, YourField) - 500 ELSE ASCII(LOWER(YourField)) END

If the field can be converted to a number it is sorted by number otherwise it uses ASCII coding to sort. I have used “- 500” just so there is no cross over in the sort, and to ensure numbers are sorted ahead of text.

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ADDENDUM:

Brian Arsuaga has posted a more robust solution to this which I actually prefer, but since this has already been marked as the answer I am adding his solution to this for the benefit of anyone reading this in the future.

ORDER BY 
        ISNUMERIC(YourField) DESC, 
        CASE WHEN ISNUMERIC(YourField) = 1 THEN CONVERT(INT, YourField) ELSE 0 END,
        YourField