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From: Robert Voinea <robert.voinea@topex.ro>
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Subject: Weird sorting order
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:14:09 +0300
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Hi...

I have the following table:

CREATE TABLE test
(
	id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
	val VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL
);

INSERT INTO test VALUES
	(DEFAULT, '##34''),
	(DEFAULT, '##32'),
	(DEFAULT, '##31'),
	(DEFAULT, '2ff'),
	(DEFAULT, '##26'),
	(DEFAULT, '2##33'),
	(DEFAULT, '2##25'),
	(DEFAULT, '2##24'),
	(DEFAULT, '2##23'),
	(DEFAULT, '211'),
	(DEFAULT, '210'),
	(DEFAULT, '203'),
	(DEFAULT, '202'),
	(DEFAULT, '201'),
	(DEFAULT, '200');

Why is it that when running the query:

SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY val;

I get the following result?
 id |  val  
----+-------
  1 | 200
  2 | 201
  3 | 202
  4 | 203
  5 | 210
  6 | 211
  7 | 2##23
  8 | 2##24
  9 | 2##25
 10 | 2##33
 11 | ##26
 12 | 2ff
 13 | ##31
 14 | ##32
 15 | ##34
(15 rows)

Shouldn't value '2ff' be placed right after '211' but before '2##23'?

Tested on PostgreSQL 8.2, 8.4, Linux SuSE & Kubuntu.

Thank you!...


-- 
Robert Voinea <robert (dot) voinea (at) topex (dot) ro>
Software Developer
Phone: +40 21 408 38 00 / ext. 343
Fax: +40 21 408 38 08
Local time: GMT+2
http://www.topex.ro