Order By

[fabiuz]

Hi,

I would like to know if it is possible to ask for a defined order in a SQL query...

I have a table with some country listes as:

USA, IRELAND, FRANCE, SPAIN...

I want to get them out with this order:

SPAIN
FRANCE
USA
IRELAND
..
..

Is it possible to do something like that without the need to add another field ?

Thanks !

Fabi

[tomhath]

Depends on how many entries and how dynamic you want the query. Adding a sort column is probably more general but requires more maintenance (maybe use valuee like 100, 200, etc. so you can insert new values between existing ones).

You could use a CASE, but that's ugly if there are more than a few:

ORDER BY CASE
WHEN country = 'SPAIN' then 'A'
WHEN country = 'FRANCE' then 'B'
...
ELSE 'ZZZ'
END

[fabiuz]

It is absolutely perfect ! I have only 5 kinds !

Thank you !

Fabi