sorting a text field in a SQL query

[Anon]

hi, i'm using sql server 7 and i have a text field that i want to sort alphabetically in a SQL query. i tried using ORDER BY but sql server says i can't use it with text fields. does anyone know how i should do it?

-sonny

[toma42]

Yea, that's just one of mssql's short falls.

You could use a varchar field with just the first X letters of the text to do the sort by having a stored procedure populate that varchar when the record is updated or insterted then sort by varchar.

It could be a little off, but will have a precision of X.