query for a peculiar sort order

[Mark Kubicki]

I've got a need for a peculiar sort order of the records in a table (it's
not really a logical order, but it is the company's "system" and deviation
is not an option)

- the designation would be: "T" followed by a 2nd letter starting
sequentially at "A"; (TA, TB, TC...)
- when the second digit reaches Z, the layout changes to be "TA" followed by
a sequential letter (TAA, TAB, TAC...)
- when the sequential letter reaches "Z" ("TAZ"), the layout changes to "TB"
followed by a sequentiual letter (TBA, TBB, TBC...)

interlaced into the sequence are subsets of records: the base designation
(TA), followed by an increment (-1, -2, -3...) (TA, TA-1, TA-2, TA-3, TB,
TC, TD, TD-1, TE...)
and then, occasionally, but not consistently, yet another designation:
"TA-series" might be used: (TA-series, TA-1, TA-2, TA-3, TB, TC, TD-series,
TD-1, TE...) NOTE: I could insist that "TA-series" be written without the
hyphen: ("TA series" vs" TA-series").


any suggestions on how to sort this "easily" would be greatly apperciated.
It seems as though I'll need to write a sub-routine that deals with the
quirks (?)

additionally, someone once told me that ACCESS ingnores "-" when sorthing;
is this true?

many thanks in advance,
mark