MySQL: Order by field size/length

Question

Here is a table structure (e.g. test):

Field Name	Data Type
id	BIGINT (20)
title	varchar(25)
Description	Text

A query like:

SELECT * FROM TEST ORDER BY description DESC;

But I would like to order by the field size/length of the field description.

The field type will be TEXT or BLOB.

Answer 1

SELECT * FROM TEST ORDER BY LENGTH(description) DESC;

The LENGTH function gives the length of string in bytes. If you want to count (multi-byte) characters, use the CHAR_LENGTH function instead:

SELECT * FROM TEST ORDER BY CHAR_LENGTH(description) DESC;

Answer 2

SELECT * FROM TEST ORDER BY CHAR_LENGTH(description);

Answer 3

For those using MS SQL

SELECT * FROM TEST ORDER BY LEN(field)