Let's see if I've got this right... You want to sort the data such that all the records for each state are together and the states should be ordered based on the lowest id present for each state, correct?

SQL can do that. 

SELECT * FROM states;
 id |   state    |      city      
----+------------+----------------
  1 | Virginia   | Norfolk
  2 | Virginia   | Chesapeake
  3 | Virginia   | Virginia Beach
  4 | Indiana    | Evansville
  5 | Indiana    | Fort Wayne
  6 | Virginia   | Falls Church
  7 | Indiana    | Indianapolis
  8 | Washington | Seatle
  9 | Washington | Spokane

SELECT s.id AS id, s.state AS state, s.city AS city FROM states s JOIN
+ (SELECT min(id) AS min_id, state FROM states GROUP BY state) j ON s.
+state = j.state ORDER BY j.min_id, s.id ;
 id |   state    |      city      
----+------------+----------------
  1 | Virginia   | Norfolk
  2 | Virginia   | Chesapeake
  3 | Virginia   | Virginia Beach
  6 | Virginia   | Falls Church
  4 | Indiana    | Evansville
  5 | Indiana    | Fort Wayne
  7 | Indiana    | Indianapolis
  8 | Washington | Seatle
  9 | Washington | Spokane

[download]
(Tested using PostgreSQL. Your syntax may vary.)

In reply to Re: Sorting and Grouping with two different fields by dsheroh
in thread Sorting and Grouping with two different fields by atemon

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.