how to sort varchar column containing numeric values with linq lambdas to Entity

Question

I am using linq lambdas to query the MySql (Note MySql not Sql) with Entity Framwork in MVC. Now i have one table product one of column this table is pric

Answer 1

You can simulate fixed PadLeft in LINQ to Entities with the canonical function DbFunctions.Right like this

instead of this

a.price.PadLeft(10, '0')

use this

DbFunctions.Right("000000000" + a.price, 10)

I haven't tested it with MySql provider, but canonical functions defined in the DbFunctions are supposed to be supported by any provider.

Answer 2

It looks right as sorting ascending But when i use OrderByDescending.ThenBy it gives

106,185,400,34,59,59

That's because you're ordering by length descending, then value ascending.
What you need is simply to sort both by descending;

query = query.OrderByDescending(a => a.price.Length)
              .ThenByDescending(a => a.price);

This should be faster than prepending numbers to sort, since you don't need to do multiple calculations per row but can instead sort by existing data.