Order Issue

have a character field that represents a date in the format YYYYMM.
This data is broken down in three month blocks,
12 Dec
11 Nov
10 Oct
by this year and the corresponding 3 month block from last year.
So the data will look like this
200512
200511
200510
200412
200411
200410
I have a report that requires this order, but my result set is already being
put into another order and I want to know if I can convert the current YYYYM
M
format to a valid date.
Can this be done and how?
Thank you~~I'm not sure I follow you. If you have:
ORDER BY thecolumn DESC
don't you get the desired order? Also, why don't you store these as a smalld
atetime column?
Tibor Karaszi, SQL Server MVP
http://www.karaszi.com/sqlserver/default.asp
http://www.solidqualitylearning.com/
"Anthony W DiGrigoli" <AnthonyWDiGrigoli@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message
news:6368A787-C7D5-4DBA-B0DE-4E7D2B6473D3@.microsoft.com...
> have a character field that represents a date in the format YYYYMM.
> This data is broken down in three month blocks,
> 12 Dec
> 11 Nov
> 10 Oct
> by this year and the corresponding 3 month block from last year.
> So the data will look like this
> 200512
> 200511
> 200510
> 200412
> 200411
> 200410
> I have a report that requires this order, but my result set is already bei
ng
> put into another order and I want to know if I can convert the current YYY
YMM
> format to a valid date.
> Can this be done and how?
> Thank you~~|||You can use multiple expressions in the "order by" clause.
Example:
select c1, ..., cn
from table1
order by
cast(left(c1, 4) as int) desc, -- here you order by year
cast(right(c1, 2) as int) desc -- here by month
AMB
"Anthony W DiGrigoli" wrote:

> have a character field that represents a date in the format YYYYMM.
> This data is broken down in three month blocks,
> 12 Dec
> 11 Nov
> 10 Oct
> by this year and the corresponding 3 month block from last year.
> So the data will look like this
> 200512
> 200511
> 200510
> 200412
> 200411
> 200410
> I have a report that requires this order, but my result set is already bei
ng
> put into another order and I want to know if I can convert the current YYY
YMM
> format to a valid date.
> Can this be done and how?
> Thank you~~