I want to select * from tbl order by characters, for example:
a) 1 coloum has a
b) 1 coluum has ab
I want it to place ab first and then a
views:
44answers:
2
+4
A:
In SQL Server:
select * from tbl
order by len(col) desc
where tbl is your table and col is the column.
This returns the results ordered by the length of col, longest first.
Blorgbeard
2010-07-02 16:56:55
I believe this doesn't use indexes since you are calculating the value. It would be significantly slower than a regular order. If it's too slow, maybe you can precalculate the length (in your code, stored procedure or trigger) and store it alongside the value.
Nelson
2010-07-02 17:33:41
It won't use indexes anyway, since there's no where clause. The whole table needs to be scanned and sorted. It's true that precalculating the length would be quicker, but I wouldn't assume that it would be a significant enough difference to go to the trouble - without benchmarking anyway.
Blorgbeard
2010-07-02 17:39:25
In SQL Server you can make an index on a persisted computed column, but that will just mean that the scan is already pre-ordered (without a where clause).
Cade Roux
2010-07-03 01:02:51
+1
A:
Sql takes care of length of the coleumn, simply select * from tbl order by col desc
TonyP
2010-07-03 01:01:28