Question

In SQLSERVER/MSSQL, here’s the problem:

SELECT * from [Translation Color] order by [Language Code]  

I want records ordered in alphabetical order starting by the ‘I’ letter.

Example of result:

‘Ioren’ ‘Iumen’ ‘Tart’ ‘Arfen’ ‘Coldry’

I don’t want to use union or more sql statements.. just try to catch it with an order by special clause.

I’ve tried with:

ORDER BY <field> REGEXP '^I' DESC 

but it didn’t work.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

This should do it:

ORDER BY CASE WHEN SUBSTRING([Translation Color],1,1) = 'l'       THEN 1 ELSE 0 END DESC 

EDIT:

Full answer for ordering completely starting at i, then looping back round to h is:

ORDER BY CASE WHEN ASCII(UPPER(SUBSTRING([Translation Color],1,1))) < 73           THEN ASCII(UPPER(SUBSTRING([Translation Color],1,1))) + 26          ELSE ASCII(UPPER(SUBSTRING([Translation Color],1,1))) END ASC,                 [Translation Color] ASC 

Please note that this will affect performance on large tables.