ORDER BY problem

[jrlewis]

This should be an easy one.

SELECT id FROM catalog WHERE variable=something ORDER BY id DESC;

The fields "id" are in the database as "IG-###" and the "ORDER BY id DESC" is returning this order:
IG-99
IG-98
IG-97
IG-102
IG-101
IG-100

Clearly, I want the numbers after the "IG-" to be in decending order, from 102 down to 97. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

John

[acrabadabra]

You probably want to use the CAST function.
http://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/MIRRORS/ftp.mysql.com/doc/en/Cast_Functions.html

[jrlewis]

got it:

ORDER BY CHARACTER_LENGTH(SUBSTRING(id,3)) desc, id DESC