Question

I want to order grades that are a string in the following order.

K, 1, 2, 4, .... 12

But I keep getting 5, 4, 3, ... 12, K, 1

The grade column in sims_classroom is VARCHAR(255) and the table is latin1;

I have tried every cast and trick in the book. At the moment I have the following trick by adding 0 to it. What am I doing wrong?

SELECT 
        (SELECT district_get_name_function(sod.parent_id, sod.id)) AS 'district_name', 
        (SELECT school_get_name_function(so.id)) AS 'school_name',
        st.teacher_username,
        st.teacher_first_name,
        st.teacher_last_name,
        c.name as 'classroom_name',
        c.grade,
        c.id,
        d.name AS 'discipline_name',
        d.id AS 'discipline_id',
        lc.name AS 'program_name',
        lc.id AS 'program_id'
    FROM sims_classroom c
.
.
.

    ORDER BY 
            CASE lower(sort_direction) WHEN 'asc' THEN
                CASE lower(sort_order)
                    WHEN 'grade' THEN 
                                 CASE c.grade 
                                    WHEN 'K' THEN 0
                                    ELSE (c.grade + 0)
                                 END
                    WHEN 'teachername' THEN lower(st.teacher_first_name)
                    ELSE c.name
                END
            END ASC,
            CASE lower(sort_direction) WHEN 'desc' THEN
                CASE lower(sort_order)
                    WHEN 'grade' THEN 
                                 CASE c.grade 
                                    WHEN 'K' THEN 10000
                                    ELSE (c.grade + 0)
                                 END
                    WHEN 'teachername' THEN lower(st.teacher_first_name)
                    ELSE c.name
                END
            END DESC

Answer 1

I could only get it to work doing this.

WHEN 'grade' THEN 
                             CASE c.grade 
                                 WHEN 'K' THEN '00'
                                 WHEN '9' THEN '09'
                                 WHEN '8' THEN '08'
                                 WHEN '7' THEN '07'
                                 WHEN '6' THEN '06'
                                 WHEN '5' THEN '05'
                                 WHEN '4' THEN '04'
                                 WHEN '3' THEN '03'
                                 WHEN '2' THEN '02'
                                 WHEN '1-2' THEN '01'
                                 WHEN '1' THEN '01'
                                 ELSE c.grade
                             END