Alphanumeric Order By in Mysql

Question

How can i make only numeric order by when the column containing alphanumeric characters in mysql ?

column (name) is unique field.

my table contains the recor

Answer 1

If you have the first X characters as letters and the rest as numbers and the alpha characters vary, you are far better off changing your structure to put this data in two columns - one for the intital letters and one for the numbers. Now you don't have to do coanversions every time you want to order, you just order on the letter columns first, then the numeric column. A redesign of your structure is truly the better way to do this espcially if you wil be ordering often or if you have a large dataset.

You could even leave the current field as the PK and have a trigger separate out to the two new fields. This way, the data is put in a format that can be ordered automatically when it is entered or updated, all current code will still work, but you can refactor to use more performant ordering.