Question

I have some strings in my database. Some of them have numeric values (but in string format of course). I am displaying those values ordered ascending.

So we know, for string values, 10 is greater than 2 for example, which is normal. I am asking if there is any solution to display 10 after 2, without changing the code or the database structure, only the data.

If for example I have to display values from 1 to 10, I will have:

• 1
• 10
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9

What I would like to have is

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10

Is there a possibility to ad an “invisible character or string which will be interpreted as greater than 9”. If i put a10 instead of 10, the a10 will be at the end but is there any invisible or less visible character for that.

So, I repeat, I am not looking for a programming or database structure solution, but for a simple workaround.

Answer 1

You could try appending the correct number of zeroes to the front of the data:

01
02
03
..
10
11
..
99