suggestions for this query....

[mcirvin]

I have a table with all the ISO standard country names that I want to use to populate a form field, so heres the issue.

I want to display USA first in the list and everything else in desc alpha order after.

I have tried something like this;

SELECT * FROM myList ORDER BY ceil(abs(sin((listID - 225)/0.000001))), listID DESC

Any ideas?

[YappyDog]

Since you are going out of your way to put USA at the top, why not just hardcode it there. Then your select can get everything not equal to USA and put them in the correct order.

[mcirvin]

I could to that but I would rather find a query that produces the correct result. This may help me later when I may want to further refine whats displayed in the dropdown based on other user input as well.

[YappyDog]

Good luck!

[mcirvin]

The key is not trying to use stuff that only works in Oracle. MySQL responds nicely to "ceiling" but not "ceil"!

SELECT * FROM standardCountryList ORDER BY ceiling(abs(sin((countryID - 225)/0.000001))), countryID DESC

[YappyDog]

As long as they never change the id number for the USA it looks like you've got it licked.

[mcirvin]

This is nicer way to do this!

SELECT * FROM standardCountryList ORDER BY (countryID != 225), countryID ASC