ordering records in a field

vaska

this is probably over my head...but i'm trying to make this work...

i'm trying to order records in a field...for instance...

if there are 6 records and i decide to make the 5th record become the first...i can somehow reorder all of the values in a field for these records...let's call it sort_order...so, i have a form, i tell it to make the 5th record the first and it automatically reorders all the records based upon the change...

this seems like a mysql function, but i'm not sure...i've also read somewhere that it's a javascript thing (but i don't believe this to be true)...

so, what should i be researching for a function such as this one above...

thanks for the thoughts...always...vaska

Pig

There's a little bit of an error to your understanding how the data is sorted. If you do not specify a column (or multiple columns) to order your data by, it will be returned in a random order.

You cannot specify a single record to order something by, only a column. You could manually select the record you want on the page, but you cannot make an individual record appear first unless it does so by the conditions you have specified.

Use ORDER BY in your sql query to determine the order.

vaska

that's not what i'm talking about...i think my query was not clear enough...

i know how to use ORDER BY...

i want to sort them after they are in the database...example...

Record A - order 1
Record B - order 2
Record C - order 3

then...when i have Record B selected in a form...and can change the order of things...

Record B - order 1 (originally order 2)
Record A - order 2 (originally order 1)
Record C - order 3

i doubt that at any one time there would be more than 10 records to order like this...

however, upon thought last night...i think (maybe), the way to achieve this is by having a query with the selected record and order change the order number and then do a query and change on each of the following records down the line...2 to 3, to 4 and so on...

but...i'm not sure if that's the most efficient way to do this...but it would work...

thanks...jv

ccgorman

I think the only way to do this is to create a temporary table move the data to that table in the order required then drop the old table and rename the temporary table to the old table.

But, wouldn't you just be better assigning a position column to the table and reordering this.

-Chris

vaska

eeeeeeek...it's me...i'm asking this question poorly...

the ONLY thing that is being changed is a number in a field column...not the column name itself...

by changing that number i can then use ORDER to keep things as i want them...

i'm pretty sure that my method will work (as described previously) - although it might not be the prettiest...hehe...i think most of my code is horrible (beyond horrible), but i'm having alot of fun learning...

thanks mucho...vaska