Oracle SQL to Sort Version Numbers

Question

In Oracle, just using the ORDER BY does not sort version numbers. My Version_Number field is declared as a VARCHAR and I cannot change

Answer 1

As Joel Coehoorn suggestions here, "refactor version number storage so that each section has it's own column: MajorVersion, MinorVersion, Revision, Build".

I'm re-posting as I found this very helpful!

To expand, I was looking to get the MAX version number, and ended up using this script along with Joel's suggestion.

    -- GET MAX VERSION NUMBER
    SELECT
        REPLACE(vnum, ' ', '') AS versionum
    FROM
        (SELECT
            MAX(LPAD(major, 4) || '.' || LPAD(minor, 4) || '.' || LPAD(revision, 4)) AS vnum
        FROM
            my_table
        ORDER BY
            major
          , minor
          , revision
        ) tbl1