Question

These queries both give the result I expect:

SELECT sex
FROM ponies
ORDER BY sex COLLATE latin1_swedish_ci ASC

SELECT sex
FROM ponies
ORDER BY CONVERT(sex USING utf8) COLLATE utf8_general_ci ASC

| f |
| f |
| m |
| m |
+---+

But this query gives a different result:

SELECT sex FROM ponies ORDER BY sex ASC

| m |
| m |
| f |
| f |
+---+

Here’s the configuration:

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'collation\_%'

| collation_connection | utf8_general_ci   |
| collation_database   | latin1_swedish_ci |
| collation_server     | latin1_swedish_ci |
+----------------------+-------------------+

The table collation is latin1_swedish_ci.

MySQL server is 5.5.16.

Answer 1

This behaviour can be observed when sex is an ENUM in which case it is usually sorted by the numerical position in the ENUM definition. Only when a collation is explicitly given an it is sorted in alphabetical order.