From: "tjk@tksoft.com" <tjk@tksoft.com>
Message-Id: <200004112232.PAA23653@uno.tksoft.com>
Subject: Re: Threaded Records in SQL: Advice Needed
To: BIngram@sixtyfootspider.com (Ingram Bryan)
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 15:32:39 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: mig@utdt.edu, pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
In-Reply-To: <9B7D4396307CD311809A00500415EB405FE1E9@BKMAIL> from "Ingram,
	Bryan" at Apr 11, 0 02:57:00 pm
Content-Type: text

Bryan,

You can numerically, even if the field is a text field,
if all fields have a number.

Just cst to an int4.

E.g. 

create table testtable (num text, num2 text);

select num from testtable order by num::int4;


Troy


> 
> Thanks for the ideas on the functions, that'll work nicely.
> 
> The only other problem I see in actually implementing this, is that the id
> column i.e. /25/10/2/ will not be ordered correctly because it relies on
> ascii values.  You get alphabetic orderings, rather than numerical.
> 
> Such as:
> 
> 1
> 10
> 11
> 12
> 14
> 2
> 20
> 25
> 3
> 4
> 5
> 
> instead of
> 
> 1
> 2
> 3
> 4
> 5
> 10
> 11
> 12
> 14
> 20
> 25
> 
> Any ideas how to get around this?  I'm working on the problem right now, but
> haven't found anything yet.
> 
> Bryan
> 
> 
>