question about sorts in a custom collection

[Peter Alcibiades]

Here is a partial list of the contents of a field in a custom collection. 
Each entry is one field of a record, the other fields are not shown.  

A:1996.1.4
A:1996.1.5
A:1996.1.6
A:1996.10
A:1996.100.1
A:1996.100.2
A:1996.11.1
A:1996.11.2
A:1996.12
A:1996.12.1

When sorted on this field, the records come out sorted as quoted above.   
Is there any way to have the sort place them into ascending order like the
following?

A:1996.1.4
A:1996.1.5
A:1996.1.6
A:1996.10
A:1996.11.1
A:1996.11.2
A:1996.12
A:1996.12
A:1996.100.1
A:1996.100.2

That is, the records are in increasing order of the date plus suffix, where
increasing means that DDDD.100 is higher than DDDD.11.   And DDD.1.4.4 if
there were one would be higher' than DDDD.1.4.

It is an object lesson in why not to make your index field out of something
with meaningful data when constructing databases, and it might be that the
only way to fix this is to insert another field, which is just a sequential
auto incrementing serial number, and then use that to sort by.  Or maybe
there is a way to use table fields and split the elements of the field?

Suggestions appreciated.

Peter
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