MySQL sorting with alphanumeric prefix - mysql

Question

I've got a database with a column that contains the following data:
aaa-1
aaa-2
aaa-3
...
aaa-10
aaa-11
...
aaa-100
aaa-101
...
aaa-1000
When I query and sort the data in ascending order, I get:
aaa-1
aaa-10
aaa-11
...
aaa-100
aaa-101
...
aaa-1000
...
aaa-2
...
aaa-3
Is this actually the correct (machine) way of sorting? Is the order being screwed up because of the aaa- prefix? How do I go about sorting this the way a human would (ie something that looks like the first snippet)?
P.S. If the problem does lie in the prefix, is there a way to remove it and sort with just the numeric component?
P.P.S. It's been suggested to me that I should just change my data and add leading zeroes like aaa-0001 and aaa-0002, etc. However, I'm loathe to go that method as each time the list goes up an order of 10, I'd have to reformat this column.
Thank you all in advance! :)

Answer 1

You can extract the number part, convert it to numeric data type and then do an ORDER BY:
SELECT mytable.*,
CAST(SUBSTRING_INDEX(mycolumn, '-', - 1) AS UNSIGNED) mycolumnintdata
FROM
mytable
ORDER BY mycolumnintdata;
If there are expressions which does not match number, the CAST function would return 0 and those records would be displayed first. You may handle this separately if needed.

Answer 2

I had a similar issue and the trick that did it for me was this one
*"ORDER BY LENGTH(column_name), column_name
As long as the non-numeric part of the value is the same length, this will sort 1 before 10, 10 before 100, etc."*
as given by Andreas Bergström on this question.
Hope that helps someone.

Answer 3

this is the alphabetical order,
you want numerical order,
for do this you must in the ORDER BY clause
trim the costant "aaa-" part
convert it in number
convert(SUBSTRING(val, 3), integer)

Answer 4

I will give you a sample sorting. Not based on your data sample, but this could help you out.
Say you have data like this :
id
----
1
2
6
10
13
when you do ORDER BY id ASC would return :
id
----
1
10
13
2
6
I suggest, use LPAD.
This query : SELECT LPAD('12',5,'0') return 00012
So when you have table data like I provide above, you can sort them like this :
SELECT * FROM TABLE
ORDER BY LPAD(ID,7,'0') ASC
Based on your data.
SELECT SUBSTR('aaa-100',5,LENGTH('aaa-100') - 3) return 100
So, SELECT LPAD( SUBSTR('aaa-100',5,LENGTH('aaa-100') - 3), 7, '0') return 00000100
So you can combine string function such as SUBSTR and LPAD. Do have any clue now?