Experiencing sorting problems with bigint columns

Parth2692
Databricks Partner

‎06-11-2025 09:31 PM

Experiencing sorting problems with bigint columns across tables tested.
 
Example:
In the table the projectid (bigint as per schema - which is correct) yet when sorted in SQL is sorting as per a string value
 
1000903 is returned as the minimum projectid value
998401 is returned as the maximum projectid value. 
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EktaPuri
New Contributor III

‎06-11-2025 10:45 PM - edited ‎06-11-2025 10:47 PM

Can you send across schema of table using describe command.

Also at runtime cast it to bigint and then check.

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Parth2692
Databricks Partner

‎06-11-2025 10:55 PM

Parth2692_0-1749707660024.png

 

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Parth2692
Databricks Partner

‎06-11-2025 10:55 PM

Parth2692_1-1749707737752.png

 

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EktaPuri
New Contributor III

‎06-11-2025 11:03 PM

Can you cast explicitly to bigint and check, it's kinda strange

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Parth2692
Databricks Partner

‎06-11-2025 11:12 PM

When I use CAST, it returns the data type as BIGINT, which is expected. However, if I'm reading directly from the Unity Catalog (UC) table, it should already return the BIGINT data type without requiring a cast. Is there a reason why this inconsistency is occurring?

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EktaPuri
New Contributor III

‎06-12-2025 12:05 AM

Try running explain command  what's happening in the background, also if table is small try to write in another table and check 

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