Question

I have a LINQ-to-SQL query, and I order on an nvarchar field called CustomerReference. The problem is, reference’s that start with a capital letter seem to be after ones without capitals, when I need this the other way around. For example, if I have the following rows:

d93838
D98484

It is currently ordered in that sequence right now, however I need it reversed – so it’d be like this

D98484
d93838

Any ideas guys? Thanks

Answer 1

This assumes the Format [A-Za-z]\d+ and will put b3432 before C1234 but after B9999

list.OrderBy (l => l.CustomerReference.Substring(0,1).ToLower())
    .ThenByDescending(l =>l.CustomerReference.Substring(0,1).ToUpper()==l.CustomerReference.Substring(0,1))
    .ThenBy (l =>l.CustomerReference )

EDIT: I was asked for the SQL too so this is what LINQPad does

-- Region Parameters
DECLARE @p0 Int SET @p0 = 0
DECLARE @p1 Int SET @p1 = 1
DECLARE @p2 Int SET @p2 = 0
DECLARE @p3 Int SET @p3 = 1
DECLARE @p4 Int SET @p4 = 0
DECLARE @p5 Int SET @p5 = 1
-- EndRegion
SELECT [T0].CustomerReference FROM [dbo].[test] AS [t0]
ORDER BY LOWER(SUBSTRING([t0].[CustomerReference], @p0 + 1, @p1)), 
(CASE 
    WHEN UPPER(SUBSTRING([t0].[CustomerReference], @p2 + 1, @p3)) = SUBSTRING([t0].[CustomerReference], @p4 + 1, @p5) THEN 1
    WHEN NOT (UPPER(SUBSTRING([t0].[CustomerReference], @p2 + 1, @p3)) = SUBSTRING([t0].[CustomerReference], @p4 + 1, @p5)) THEN 0
    ELSE NULL
 END) DESC, [t0].[CustomerReference]