Question

The Column is a string, and the data inside of it can be

10
2
3
3.1
3.2
a10
a11
1
a12.2
a12.3

wanting the results back as:

1
2
3
3.1
3.2
10
a10
a11
a12.2
a12.3

This would be ASP/VBScript with a MSACCESS web database (Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source)

Answer 1

If the non-number strings always begin with a single letter like in your sample, you can ORDER BY three column expressions.

SELECT DISTINCT
    IIf(IsNumeric(the_column) = True, 0, 1) AS order_by1,
    IIf(IsNumeric(the_column) = True, '', Left(the_column,1)) AS order_by2,
    IIf(IsNumeric(the_column) = True,
        Val(the_column), Val(Mid(the_column,2))) AS order_by3,
    the_column
FROM YourTable
ORDER BY 1, 2, 3;

If you don’t want those order_byX fields in your result set, move them into the ORDER BY clause instead.

SELECT DISTINCT
    the_column
FROM YourTable
ORDER BY
    IIf(IsNumeric(the_column) = True, 0, 1),
    IIf(IsNumeric(the_column) = True, '', Left(the_column,1)),
    IIf(IsNumeric(the_column) = True,
        Val(the_column), Val(Mid(the_column,2)));