I have a field with alphanumerics like so:
D1, D2 .... D10, D11, D12 .... etc etc

I need to sort by the number part only, so I thought of using the Sub String formatter like so:
Sort Order in query: {{code_no.substr(1, 2)}}

but this does not show any results - it breaks the query.

Can Server Data Formatter be used like this for a Sort Order column in a query?

Hello David,
You cannot use formatters in the order column value.

Thanks Teodor - I do realize that the client should have used alphanumerics like D01 D02 ... D99 in order to sort properly.

When working with databases you use INT/numeric fields for data sorting. Sorting strings works exactly like on your site currently. You should add a sort column, which is an INT type and sort using it.

Thanks for this Teodor.
That was my thought as well - I've used this idea for sorting images in a small gallery using an image_sort column.