Re: order by question

Steve Clark <sclark(at)netwolves(dot)com> wrote:

> I am confused by how postgres 8,4..13 is sorting my data.

> select * from test order by data;
>     data
> ----------
>
>   -
>   --
>   1
>   11
>   11F
>   1F
>   a
>   b
>   C
>   F
>   -F
>   Feneric
>   Generic
> (14 rows)
>
> The first row is a single space, the next row a single -, the next two -- .
> What I don't understand is why the '-F', the ' Feneric' and
> the ' Generic' sort where they do.
>
> I would expect the output to be like this:
>
>     data
> ----------
>
>   Feneric
>   Generic
>   -
>   --
>   -F
>   1
>   11
>   11F
>   1F
>   a
>   b
>   C
>   F
> (14 rows)

>   lc_collate
> -------------
>   en_US.UTF-8

PostgreSQL uses the OS collations.  What you are getting matches my
Ubuntu 14.04 machine:

kgrittn(at)Kevin-Desktop:~/pg/master$ echo $LANG
en_US.UTF-8
kgrittn(at)Kevin-Desktop:~/pg/master$ sort <<XXX
>
>   Feneric
>   Generic
>   -
>   --
>   -F
>   1
>   11
>   11F
>   1F
>   a
>   b
>   C
>   F
> XXX

  -
  --
  1
  11
  11F
  1F
  a
  b
  C
  F
  -F
  Feneric
  Generic

--
Kevin Grittner
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company