Oracle SQL to Sort Version Numbers

Question

In Oracle, just using the ORDER BY does not sort version numbers. My Version_Number field is declared as a VARCHAR and I cannot change

Answer 1

This is one way to do it. First order by the number before . and then by the numbers after .

select version_number 
from mytable 
order by substr(version_number, 1, instr(version_number,'.')-1) desc
        ,length(substr(version_number, instr(version_number,'.')+1)) desc
        ,substr(version_number, instr(version_number,'.')+1) desc