Sorting by numbers..."123" is less than "99"

[EricgTP313]

Hello,
I've written a very basic shopping cart script in php/mysql for a friend, and I want to be able to sort by price ascending and descending, but if there is a price that is, say $123, it is being sorted as less than, say, $99, because the 1 obviously IS less than the 9.

How would I go about making the script know that a 1 in a 3 digit string actually is greater than a 9 in a 2 digit string, and so on?
Heres my code:
[code]

<?php
$sort = $_GET['sort'];
$by = $_GET['by'];

if(!$sort){
$sort = title;
}
if(!$by){
$by = ASC;
}

$query2 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM products WHERE type = 'sfx' ORDER BY $sort $by") or die(mysql_error());
?><div align="right">
<form name="form1" id="form1">Sort Items By:
  <select name="menu1" onchange="MM_jumpMenu('parent',this,0)">
  <option value="#">[Select One]</option>
    <option value="index.php?p=sfx&sort=price&by=DESC">Price (High - Low)</option>
<option value="index.php?p=sfx&sort=price&by=ASC">Price (Low - High)</option>
<option value="index.php?p=sfx&sort=title&by=ASC">Title (A - Z)</option>
<option value="index.php?p=sfx&sort=title&by=DESC">Title (Z - A)</option>
<option value="index.php?p=sfx&sort=type&by=ASC">Type (A - Z)</option>
<option value="index.php?p=sfx&sort=type&by=DESC">Type (Z - A)</option>
  </select>
</form>
</div>
[/code]

[Gast]

Use this instead after echoing the results:

[code]<?php
sort($array, SORT_NUMERIC);
?>[/code]

[Kurt]

Also, shouldn't the values of the variables $sort and $by be in quotes? Unless you defined title and ASC as constants...

And your query should work fine.

[shoz]

Change the column type for price so that it will be sorted correctly.
[code]
ALTER TABLE products CHANGE price price DECIMAL
[/code]
If you're storing the "$" symbol in the column you should stop doing so.

[EricgTP313]

[quote author=shoz link=topic=99897.msg393711#msg393711 date=1152391726]
Change the column type for price so that it will be sorted correctly.
[code]
ALTER TABLE products CHANGE price price DECIMAL
[/code]
If you're storing the "$" symbol in the column you should stop doing so.
[/quote]

awesome, that worked great, thanks!
and no, I'm not storing the $ in the column :)