Order by and strings - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Fredric Fredricson
Subject Order by and strings
Date
Msg-id 4B70A7D4.4000102@bonetmail.com
Whole thread Raw
Responses Re: Order by and strings  (Justin Graf <justin@magwerks.com>)
List pgsql-general
Hi!
New to the list with a question that I cannot find the answer to in the manual or on the internet but I suspect is trivial. If somebody could point me in the correct direction I would be greatful.

This is what I do (condensed, of course):
# create table tmp ( x text ) ;
CREATE TABLE
# insert into tmp(x) values ('a'),('c'),('-b') ;
INSERT 0 3
# select * from tmp order by x ;
 x
----
 a
 -b
 c
(3 rows)

I would expect a string that start with a hyphen to be sorted before or after 'a' and 'c' and not between them. I have tried with a few other characters (space, opening parenthesis, etc) but the result is the same.

What I want is the strings sorted by their ascii (or UTF-8) values, without some "smart" heuristic. How do I accomplish this?

I cannot find this described in the manual (it should be there!) or on the net.

/Fredric

PS. 8.2, Fedora Linux

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