Unable to sort the strings

Question

Hi ,
I have a table which stores some strings like :
Create Table Sample2 (C1 Varchar2(20));
Insert Into Sample2 Values('^!12');
Insert Into Sample2 Values('9.2345353');
Insert Into Sample2 Values('%!5');
I am trying to do a ascending sort on the c1 column in sample2 table, but i see wierd results : the
output of the query is like :
SQL> select * from sample2 order by c1 asc
Output:
%!5
9.2345353
^!12
But if you see the above output the value '9.2345353' should appear at the end (bcoz it has the highest ascii value), but i see in the second row.can you please let me know, why it is happening ...
Thanks

Answer 1

CharlesRoos wrote:
WITH t AS
(SELECT '%!5' C1
FROM Dual
UNION ALL
SELECT '9.2345353' C1
FROM Dual
UNION ALL
SELECT '^!12' C1 FROM Dual)
SELECT * FROM t ORDER BY Lower(C1)
^!12
%!5
9.2345353
*/;Ordering is like string functions and other such operations, depending, of database character set.And how is that supposed to work?
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  with t as (
  2  select '%!5' as c1 from dual union all
  3  select '9.2345353' as c1 from dual union all
  4  select '^!12' as c1 from dual
  5  )
  6  --
  7  select c1
  8  from t
  9* order by lower(c1)
SQL> /
C1
%!5
9.2345353
^!12
SQL>... cos it doesn't for me. The LOWER of a non alpha character is the same as the character itself.