phpMyAdmin - mariaDB roman numerals function - function

Question

can anybody help me with my sorting function - seriously I don't know how can I make it work as supposed to. :( Database is in MariaDB in Xampp. I use phpMyAdmin to execute the query.
DELIMITER $$
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS convRomanNumeral$$
CREATE FUNCTION convRomanNumeral (numeral CHAR(4))
RETURNS INT
BEGIN
DECLARE intnum INT;
CASE numeral
WHEN "I" THEN intnum = 1;
WHEN "II" THEN intnum = 2;
END CASE;
RETURN intnum;
END;
$$
SET #iteration = -1;
UPDATE `st0gk_docman_documents`
SET created_on = DATE('2016-06-14') + INTERVAL(#iteration := #iteration + 1) SECOND
WHERE `docman_category_id` = 141 ORDER BY convRomanNumeral(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING_INDEX(title,'/',1),' ',-2) ASC, SUBSTRING_INDEX(title,'/',-2)+0 ASC;
So what I want to achieve is to sort documents by title. Example titles are:
Document Nr I/36/2006
Document Nr II/36/2006
Document Nr I/32/2006
Document Nr II/19/2006
After sorting them by first Roman number and then by second Arabic number I want to update the date. Code below for updating by only second Arabic number works properly:
SET #iteration = -1;
UPDATE `st0gk_docman_documents`
SET created_on = DATE('2016-06-14') + INTERVAL(#iteration := #iteration + 1) SECOND
WHERE `docman_category_id` = 141 ORDER BY SUBSTRING_INDEX(title,'/',-2)+0 ASC;
I would like to use CASE to return proper variable for Roman values. I know it's not perfect but I can't even make the CASE and FUNCTION work. What I am doing wrong? All suggestions are welcome.

Answer 1

The best way to do this is to add another column that has a sortable equivalent of that string. And use non-SQL code to do the parsing and building of that column before inserting into the table.

Answer 2

First mistake that I was making it was trying to execute the whole query at once... After taking the first lodge out of the way the debugging seemed way simpler. :D
So I created my case function to convert Roman numerals:
DELIMITER $$
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS convRomanNumeralSubFunction$$
CREATE FUNCTION convRomanNumeralSubFunction (numeral CHAR(1))
RETURNS INT
BEGIN
DECLARE intnum INT;
CASE numeral
WHEN "I" THEN SELECT 1 INTO intnum;
WHEN "X" THEN SELECT 10 INTO intnum;
WHEN "C" THEN SELECT 100 INTO intnum;
WHEN "M" THEN SELECT 1000 INTO intnum;
WHEN "V" THEN SELECT 5 INTO intnum;
WHEN "L" THEN SELECT 50 INTO intnum;
WHEN "D" THEN SELECT 500 INTO intnum;
END CASE;
RETURN intnum;
END;
$$
After that I declared the second function needed for conversion. I don't know if You can declare function inside function... and I didn't want to waste more time on this. For sure You can declare Function inside Procedure. Anyhow. WARNING: This function is not proof of BAD numerals like IIX. Numerals like that or will be badly counted. Also AXI will not count.
DELIMITER $$
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS convRomanNumeral$$
CREATE FUNCTION convRomanNumeral (numeral CHAR(10))
RETURNS INT
BEGIN
DECLARE currentintnum, previntnum, intnum, counter, numerallength INT;
SET numerallength = LENGTH(numeral);
SET counter = numerallength;
SET intnum = 0;
SET previntnum = 0;
WHILE counter > 0 DO
SET currentintnum = CAST(convRomanNumeralSubFunction(SUBSTRING(numeral,counter, 1)) as integer);
IF currentintnum < previntnum THEN
SET intnum = intnum - currentintnum;
ELSE
SET intnum = intnum + currentintnum;
END IF;
SET previntnum = currentintnum;
SET counter = counter - 1;
END WHILE;
RETURN intnum;
END;
$$
So that's it. Now You can convert all kind of Roman numerals and sort them up.
Use this to test the conversion:
SELECT convRomanNumeral("XIX");
This is example sorting code that I in the end used:
SET #iteration = -1;
UPDATE `st0gk_docman_documents`
SET created_on = DATE('2016-06-07') + INTERVAL(#iteration := #iteration + 1) SECOND
WHERE `docman_category_id` = 67 ORDER BY convRomanNumeralBreak(SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX(title,'/',1),' ',-1)) ASC, SUBSTRING_INDEX(title,'/',-2)+0 ASC;
Also one more thing - if You'll try to excecute this on mySQL then You have to fix this line:
SET currentintnum = CAST(convRomanNumeralSubFunction(SUBSTRING(numeral,counter, 1)) as integer);
into this:
SET currentintnum = CAST(convRomanNumeralSubFunction(SUBSTRING(numeral,counter, 1)) as SIGNED);
This code could be improved but as the #Rick James stated this should be done differently - not in as db update but in different table structure and sorting mechanism.