Sorting Dates

[Anon]

I have a query that selects (varchar 10)dates from a database and then outputs them to html

My problem is how can I sort them by date
My format is European {day-month-year}
example these are the dates in the database

//Data
02-12-2001
31-02-2001
03-06-2001
01-07-2001
10-01-2002

if I use SQL function ORDER BY ASC
I get this,
01-07-2002
02-12-2001
03-06-2001
10-01-2002
31-02-2001

The Result I need is this
31-02-2001
03-06-2001
01-07-2002
02-12-2001
10-01-2002

I am using MSSQL SERVER 7.0 so maybe there is a function built into the database server

Thanks for your help ion advance

[[deleted]]

You should not store dates in a varchar field, always use a proper date field.

A varchar field is a string and will sort according to the alphabet, not accoring to the calendar.

[Anon]

hello jennifer,

assuming the dates are stored in an array
onedimensional like:
$arr[0]="02-12-2001";
$arr[1]="10-01-2001";
.
.
.
you could do something like this:

$narr1=do_reverse($arr);
sort($narr1);
$narr=do_reverse($narr1);

//after that the dates are well sorted in
//$narr (hope so)

function do_reverse($arr)
{
$c=count($arr);
for($i=0;$i<$c;$i++)
{
$pre=explode("-",$arr[$i]);
$narr[]=$pre[2]."-".$pre[1]."-".$pre[0];
}
return $narr;
}

hth
chris