Is there an elegant way to have performant, natural sorting in a MySQL database?
For example if I have this data set:
Another option is to do the sorting in memory after pulling the data from mysql. While it won't be the best option from a performance standpoint, if you are not sorting huge lists you should be fine.
If you take a look at Jeff's post, you can find plenty of algorithms for what ever language you might be working with. Sorting for Humans : Natural Sort Order