Ordering an existing database by numbers in a string - mysql

Question

This one is a bit of a nightmare. I'm working on frontend for an existing database,and I'm having to jump through hoops to make sure that data is displayed in the correct order. It'd make my life a whole lot simpler if I could just order by Id, but the Ids have little or no correlation to the data.
Here's what I mean
ID DATA
357 "7-1-5: Sensitive Information I can't share"
2521 "30-2-8-17: Yet more sensitive Information"
6002 "9-30: There's a 10 behind the colon, because I hate you"
8999 "2-2-4: This was populated in no particular order"
9001 "30-3: More Info."
I'm trying to get it ordered like this
ID DATA
0001 "2-2-4: This was populated in no particular order"
0002 "7-1-5: Sensitive Information I can't share"
0003 "9-30: There's a 10 behind the colon, because I hate you"
0004 "30-2-8-17: Yet more sensitive Information"
0005 "30-3: More Info."
Basically, I need it to sort by each 1 to 2 digit number that's separated by dashes, again and again, so that 1-3 comes after 1-2-1, which comes after 1-1-50.
Like I said in the beginning, I'm a frontend guy, so executing stuff in MySql is more than I can do alone. Any help would be immensely appreciated.
Edit: I just realized there's foreign keys in a separate table pointing to this one, making things just that much worse.

Answer 1

Try this query:
SELECT col
FROM yourTable
ORDER BY SUBSTRING(col, INSTR(col, '"') + 1, INSTR(col, ':') - INSTR(col, '"') - 1)
The SUBSTRING(...) term in the ORDER BY clause extracts just the ids from the text. Presumably you want them to sorted numerically, from left to right. Even though they are varchar, numerical sorting should still work.
For your sample data, this produced the following output:
ID 8999 DATA "2-2-4: This was populated in no particular order"
ID 2521 DATA "30-2-8-17: Yet more sensitive Information"
ID 357 DATA "7-1-5: Sensitive Information I can't share"
ID 6002 DATA "9-30: There's a 10 behind the colon, because I hate you"
Fiddle is down as of the writing of this answer, but I tested the query in MySQL Workbench and it seems to work well.
Edit:
If you want to assign a new ID to each record, you create a new table (newTable) with an ID column which is auto increment. Then you can use INSERT INTO ... SELECT along with the above ORDER BY logic to populate the table. The ID field should be incremented automatically by MySQL.
INSERT INTO newTable (`id`, `col`)
SELECT NULL, col
FROM yourTable
ORDER BY SUBSTRING(col, INSTR(col, '"') + 1, INSTR(col, ':') - INSTR(col, '"') - 1)

Answer 2

Something like this should work, but it is very delicate; all the fields calculated in the outer SELECT (after the *) must be performed in that exact order. Note that the calculations aliased nl#, p#, and r# (except r0) repeat exactly... so the query is not as complicated as it initially appears.
SELECT *
, #r := dataOrd AS r0 -- #r is "remaining string"
, #nextSep := INSTR(#r, '-') AS nl1
, CAST(CASE #nextSep WHEN 0 THEN #r ELSE SUBSTR(#r, 1, #nextSep-1) END AS UNSIGNED) AS p1
, #r := CASE #nextSep WHEN 0 THEN '' ELSE SUBSTRING(#r, #nextSep+1) END AS r1
, #nextSep := INSTR(#r, '-') AS nl2
, CAST(CASE #nextSep WHEN 0 THEN #r ELSE SUBSTR(#r, 1, #nextSep-1) END AS UNSIGNED) AS p2
, #r := CASE #nextSep WHEN 0 THEN '' ELSE SUBSTRING(#r, #nextSep+1) END AS r2
, #nextSep := INSTR(#r, '-') AS nl3
, CAST(CASE #nextSep WHEN 0 THEN #r ELSE SUBSTR(#r, 1, #nextSep-1) END AS UNSIGNED) AS p3
, #r := CASE #nextSep WHEN 0 THEN '' ELSE SUBSTRING(#r, #nextSep+1) END AS r3
, #nextSep := INSTR(#r, '-') AS nl4
, CAST(CASE #nextSep WHEN 0 THEN #r ELSE SUBSTR(#r, 1, #nextSep-1) END AS UNSIGNED) AS p4
, #r := CASE #nextSep WHEN 0 THEN '' ELSE SUBSTRING(#r, #nextSep+1) END AS r4
FROM
(
SELECT *, SUBSTR(`DATA`, 1, INSTR(`DATA`, ':') - 1) AS dataOrd
FROM yourTable
) AS sepSubQ
ORDER BY p1, p2, p3, p4
;
Technically, the last #r assignment (aliased r4) is unnecessary, but it completes the pattern that will be need to be repeated if you need to handle more than 4 ordering "parts"; in which case you just need to repeat the last three field calculations (with incremented aliases).
If you want to be rid of the "working" fields, you can wrap this in another outer query only selects the fields from the original table you wanted and the pX fields from the above query; technically, you don't even need to select the pX fields as the order will already be performed by this query, or can be done in the wrapper without selecting them.
SELECT `ID`, `DATA`
FROM ([the query above]) AS subQ
ORDER BY p1, p2, p3, p4
;