Ordering a varchar column in MySQL in an Excel-like manner

Question

I have a varchar column with mixed data- strings, integers, decimals, blank strings, and null values. I'd like to sort the column the same way that Excel would, first sorting numbers and then sorting the strings. For example:

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 3.5
• 10
• 11
• 12
• alan
• bob
• carl
• (blank/null)
• (blank/null)

I've tried doing something like 'ORDER BY my_column+0' which sorts the numbers correctly but not the strings. I was hoping someone might know of an efficient way to accomplish this.

MartinofD's suggestion works for the most part and if I expand on it a little bit I can get exactly what I want:

SELECT a FROM test ORDER BY a IS NULL OR a='', a<>'0' AND a=0, a+0, a;

Pretty ugly though and I'm not sure if there are any better options.

Answer 1

This works:

SELECT a FROM test ORDER BY a IS NULL OR a='', a<>'0' AND a=0, a+0, a;

Any more efficient/elegant solution would be welcome however.

Answer 2

That's because my_column+0 is equal for all strings (0).

Just use ORDER BY my_column+0, my_column

mysql> SELECT a FROM test ORDER BY a+0, a;
+-------+
| a     |
+-------+
| NULL  |
| alan  |
| bob   |
| carl  |
| david |
| 1     |
| 2     |
| 3     |
| 3.5   |
| 10    |
| 11    |
| 12    |
+-------+
12 rows in set (0.00 sec)

If you strictly need the numbers to be above the strings, here's a solution (though I'm not sure how quick this will be on big tables):

mysql> SELECT a FROM test ORDER BY (a = CONCAT('', 0+a)) DESC, a+0, a;
+-------+
| a     |
+-------+
| 1     |
| 2     |
| 3     |
| 3.5   |
| 10    |
| 11    |
| 12    |
| alan  |
| bob   |
| carl  |
| david |
| NULL  |
+-------+
12 rows in set (0.00 sec)