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How to Sort a Varchar Column Storing Integers with Order By? SQL Server

Recently I faced a very interesting issue during the column sorting in SQL Server. I have a VARCHAR column in a SQL Server database that can contain either letters or numbers. It depends on how the application is configured on the front-end for the employee codes.

One possible solution is to pad the numeric values with a character in front so that all are of the same 'string' length.

As an Example,

SELECT TOP 15 *
FROM [DBO].[EMP_CODES]
ORDER BY
CASE ISNUMERIC(EMP_CODE)
    WHEN 1 THEN REPLICATE('0', 100 - LEN(LTRIM(RTRIM(EMP_CODE)))) + LTRIM(RTRIM(EMP_CODE))
    ELSE LTRIM(RTRIM(EMP_CODE))
END

Second possible solution

As an Example,

SELECT TOP 15 *
FROM [DBO].[EMP_CODES]
ORDER BY
CASE WHEN ISNUMERIC(EMP_CODE) = 1 THEN RIGHT(REPLICATE('0',21) + LTRIM(RTRIM(EMP_CODE)), 20)
     WHEN ISNUMERIC(EMP_CODE) = 0 THEN LEFT(LTRIM(RTRIM(EMP_CODE)) + REPLICATE('',21), 20)
     ELSE LTRIM(RTRIM(EMP_CODE))
END

Both the solutions are working as per expected result. If you have any other methods, text me I will add the 3rd possible solutions. I hope these examples will helps to another one to resolve the issue.

By Anil Singh | Rating of this article (*****)

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