Specify different ORDER BY

[jenni]

I have a database table of records that fall into different categories. When I print out the records, I would like to order them by category, but I want the categories to be displayed in an order that I specify (not alpha-numeric or desc/asc).

There are hundreds of records in the table, so I would prefer not to create another column in the table that specifies an order. Plus, the order might need to be changed in the future.

Any suggestions?

[bad76]

Hi,
the only one i think is to add any prefix, like "0001","0002","0003_"...,
in the categories field

[tomhath]

Use a "case", something like this:

select stuff, morestuff
from someTable
order by
  case when stuff = 'red' then 0
       when stuff = 'green' then 1
       else 2
  end