HOW TO SORT NUMBER AND TEXT IN SAME FIELD?

[Guest]

I have created a database that has a column that contains both numbers and
letters. ex 10, 100a, 101a, 201a, 1000 etc. I would like this column to
sort 1,2,3 etc. - 100, 100a, 100b etc. How do I get it to sort in this
fashion?

 

[Brendan Reynolds]

If the letters always come after the numbers, as in your example, you could
sort using the Val() function. For example, in a query ...

SELECT * FROM YourTable ORDER BY Val([YourField])

This will not be very efficient, however, as the database engine will not be
able to use an index to speed up sorting. A more efficient approach would be
to use two fields, one number and one text. You can always concatenate the
two for display purposes ...

SELECT [YourNumberField] & [YourTextField] FROM YourTable ORDER BY
YourNumberField, YourTextField

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[Joseph Meehan]

I have created a database that has a column that contains both numbers and
letters. ex 10, 100a, 101a, 201a, 1000 etc. I would like this column to
sort 1,2,3 etc. - 100, 100a, 100b etc. How do I get it to sort in this
fashion?

Just a few ideas that should help you do what you need.

First you don't have text and numbers in the same field. It appears you
have text. 1 or 2 can be text or numbers. If they are in a text field they
are text and will be treated as such.

It may be easiest to divide the data into two fields or use a query to
divide it up. Right now I can't recall the sort order that Access uses nor
do I remember if you can change it.

 

[Mike Painter]

I have created a database that has a column that contains both
numbers and letters. ex 10, 100a, 101a, 201a, 1000 etc. I would
like this column to sort 1,2,3 etc. - 100, 100a, 100b etc. How do I
get it to sort in this fashion?

Since you are using a text field you can only do this if the text line up

A query with a calculated field can be sorted on and the actual field
displayed.

SortField: Right ("000000000" & YourField, 10) will work.