Weird sorting order

Hi...

I have the following table:

CREATE TABLE test
(
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    val VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL
);

INSERT INTO test VALUES
    (DEFAULT, '##34''),
    (DEFAULT, '##32'),
    (DEFAULT, '##31'),
    (DEFAULT, '2ff'),
    (DEFAULT, '##26'),
    (DEFAULT, '2##33'),
    (DEFAULT, '2##25'),
    (DEFAULT, '2##24'),
    (DEFAULT, '2##23'),
    (DEFAULT, '211'),
    (DEFAULT, '210'),
    (DEFAULT, '203'),
    (DEFAULT, '202'),
    (DEFAULT, '201'),
    (DEFAULT, '200');

Why is it that when running the query:

SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY val;

I get the following result?
 id |  val
----+-------
  1 | 200
  2 | 201
  3 | 202
  4 | 203
  5 | 210
  6 | 211
  7 | 2##23
  8 | 2##24
  9 | 2##25
 10 | 2##33
 11 | ##26
 12 | 2ff
 13 | ##31
 14 | ##32
 15 | ##34
(15 rows)

Shouldn't value '2ff' be placed right after '211' but before '2##23'?

Tested on PostgreSQL 8.2, 8.4, Linux SuSE & Kubuntu.

Thank you!...


--
Robert Voinea <robert (dot) voinea (at) topex (dot) ro>
Software Developer
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