order by date

[rmfloris]

I have a rather complex question and not sure if it's even possible.

I have a list of entries which have and potential end date. This is used to show all the active entries. But I also want to have a page where I show them both. So far, no problem. The problem starts when I want to sort the entries.

Just sorting on end date, I get a mix of active (today < end date) and non active (today>end date). What I want to do with the ordering is, is to sort all then entries as follows:
sort all on active/non active
sort both sections on end date

This will result in a list with first active entries, sorted on the end date and then all non active entries, sorted on date.

Is this possible? And how can it be done?

[sneakyimp]

something like this might work:

SELECT field1, field2, end_date, IF(end_date > NOW(), 1, 0) AS actv FROM my_table ORDER BY actv DESC, end_date ASC