How to Sort VARCHAR Columns with Mixed Numeric and Alphabetic Values Numerically in SQL Server?

Sorting VARCHAR Columns with Numeric Values in SQL Server

When dealing with a VARCHAR column that may contain both numbers and letters, sorting presents a challenge if you want numeric values to be ordered numerically. By default, SQL Server will sort such a column alphabetically, which is not desirable in this case.

To achieve the desired sorting behavior, a solution involves padding numeric values with characters to ensure all strings have the same length. This allows SQL Server to sort the data numerically.

Here's an example query that demonstrates this approach:

select MyColumn
from MyTable
order by
    case IsNumeric(MyColumn)
        when 1 then Replicate('0', 100 - Len(MyColumn)) + MyColumn
        else MyColumn
    end

In this query, the IsNumeric function is used to determine if a value is numeric. If it is, the Replicate function adds leading zeros to pad the string to a fixed length (100 in this example). Otherwise, the value is left unchanged.

By sorting by this expression, numeric values will be padded and sorted numerically, while non-numeric values will be sorted alphabetically. This ensures the desired sort order, as shown in the example in the original question:

1
2
10
A
B
B1

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