Question

I have a list of data from SQL field. I want to sort by the field ASC but when i do it comes up in the wrong order. I know why it does it, but wondered if there was a solution around this problem. Ive heard of natsort php function, but not investigated it. Is there an easy way?

Academy

Under 10′s Blue

Under 10′s Green

Under 11′s Red

Under 11′s White

Under 13′s Blue

Under 13′s Red

Under 13′s White

Under 14′s Blue

Under 15′s Blue

Under 15′s Red

Under 15′s White

Under 16′s Red

Under 18′s Blue

Under 18′s Red

Under 7′s

Under 8′s Red

Under 9′s Red

Answer 1

There is a very simple approach to sort this list. For all values of Academy starting with Under you perform the sort algorithm based on the following ORDER BY clause:

ORDER BY
REPLACE(Academy,'Under ','') + 0,Academy

The first sort column is based on removing the string ‘Under ‘ and then adding 0. This will force an ordering of the resulting integer.

Here is an example of computing the numeric value by removing ‘Under ‘ first:

mysql> select REPLACE('Under 15\'s Red','Under ','') + 0;
+--------------------------------------------+
| REPLACE('Under 15\'s Red','Under ','') + 0 |
+--------------------------------------------+
|                                         15 |
+--------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

The second sort column will order by the string value of Academy. All 'Under 15's' are grouped together and alphanumerically sorted.

Here is your sample data from the question loaded into a table and sorted:

mysql> use test
Database changed
mysql> drop table if exists under99color;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> create table under99color
    -> (academy varchar(30),
    -> id int not null auto_increment,
    -> primary key (id),
    -> index academy (academy)) engine=MyISAM;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.04 sec)

mysql> show create table under99color\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: under99color
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `under99color` (
  `academy` varchar(30) DEFAULT NULL,
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `academy` (`academy`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> insert into under99color (academy) values
    -> ('Under 10\'s Blue'),('Under 10\'s Green'),('Under 11\'s Red'),
    -> ('Under 11\'s White'),('Under 13\'s Blue'),('Under 13\'s Red'),
    -> ('Under 13\'s White'),('Under 14\'s Blue'),('Under 15\'s Blue'),
    -> ('Under 15\'s Red'),('Under 15\'s White'),('Under 16\'s Red'),
    -> ('Under 18\'s Blue'),('Under 18\'s Red'),('Under 7\'s'),
    -> ('Under 8\'s Red'),('Under 9\`s Red');
Query OK, 17 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 17  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> select academy from under99color
    -> ORDER BY REPLACE(Academy,'Under ','') + 0,Academy;
+------------------+
| academy          |
+------------------+
| Under 7's        |
| Under 8's Red    |
| Under 9`s Red    |
| Under 10's Blue  |
| Under 10's Green |
| Under 11's Red   |
| Under 11's White |
| Under 13's Blue  |
| Under 13's Red   |
| Under 13's White |
| Under 14's Blue  |
| Under 15's Blue  |
| Under 15's Red   |
| Under 15's White |
| Under 16's Red   |
| Under 18's Blue  |
| Under 18's Red   |
+------------------+
17 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

Give it a Try !!!