Sort by name, but ignore quotes?

Answer 1

SELECT *
 FROM table
ORDER BY CASE WHEN len(col) >= 2
              THEN REPLACE(LEFT(COL, 1), '"', '') 
                 + RIGHT(LEFT(col, LEN(col)-1), LEN(LEFT(col, LEN(col)-1))-1) 
                 + REPLACE(RIGHT(col, 1), '"', '')
              ELSE col
         END

in the ORDER BY, I eliminate double quotes by replacing it 'within' 1st & last characters by ''. Of course it's only valid when col length >= 2.

Answer 2

Depends on what language you are using. In MS SQL, I use the REPLACE command. So if I have a table, users, with a column first name that I am sorting by, I do this which strips all the double quotes out of the string:

SELECT     *
FROM         dbo.Users
ORDER BY REPLACE(firstName, '"', '')

Answer 3

SELECT * FROM yourTable ORDER BY TRIM(BOTH '"' FROM title);

Answer 4

select name  from myTable order by REPLACE(name, '"', '')

Answer 5

A trick that may be acceptable, and faster than TRIM() or REPLACE() based solution is to focus only on the first character being a quote (or by extension a non alphanumeric character).

ORDER BY CASE LEFT(myCol, 1) 
      WHEN '"' THEN REPLACE(myCol, '"', '')
      ELSE myCol
    END CASE

In general, for bigger dataset, this kind of processing should be done at load time, for example with the addition of columns for querying purposes as opposed to columns for display purposes.