order by numeric value for meta value

Question

I have read countless posts on ordering data by numeric value ( as opposed to string - it i have a numeric meta value and it gets ordered like this 1 11 12 2 233 etc as opposed to the way i want it

I am using WP_Query have tried using meta_query => 'NUMERIC' but i'm not sure if that's what it's actually supposed to do

eg

$args =  array(
    'meta_query' => array(
            array(
                  'type' => 'NUMERIC'
            )
    ),
    'orderby' => 'meta_value',
    'meta_key' => '_date',
    'post_type' => 'events',
    'posts_per_page' => 5,
    'order' => 'ASC'

);

Answer 1

you need to use

'orderby' => 'meta_value_num', 

also if you are ordering dates, the best advice is to put them in an easy to order way such as 2012-12-31