TSQL - Is it possible to define the sort order?

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Is it possible to define a sort order for the returned results?

up vote down I would like the sort order to be 'orange' 'apple' 'strawberry' not ascending or descending. vote 1 I Know ORDER BY can do ASC or DESC but is there a DEFINED('orange', 'apple',
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'strawberry') type thing? This will be running on SQL Server 2000.

sql sql-server tsql sql-server-2000 sql-order-by

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edited Jan 25 '11 at 1:56

asked Jan 25 '11 at 1:52

OMG Ponies 103k1192175

Justin808 3,39011649

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It's incredibly clunky, but you can use a CASE statement for ordering: SELECT * FROM Blah ORDER BY CASE MyColumn WHEN 'orange' THEN 1 WHEN 'apple' THEN 2 WHEN 'strawberry' THEN 3 END Alternately, you can create a secondary table which contains the sort field and a sort

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order. TargetValue orange apple strawberry SortOrder 1 2 3

And join your table onto this new table.

share|improve this answer answered Jan 25 '11 at 1:55

LittleBobbyTables 11.1k51738

Hah! Like I'm going to trust any SQL coming from someone called LittleBobbyTables :-) paxdiablo Jan 25 '11 at 2:04 @pax - <insert picture of Admiral Ackbar here> :-) LittleBobbyTables Jan 25 '11 at 2:06 +1 for the table option, always more flexible RichardTheKiwi Jan 25 '11 at 2:26 feedback

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Use a CASE statement: ORDER BY CASE your_col WHEN 'orange' THEN 1 WHEN 'apple' THEN 2 WHEN 'strawberry' THEN 3 END Alternate syntax, with an ELSE: ORDER BY CASE WHEN your_col = 'orange' THEN 1 WHEN your_col = 'apple' THEN 2 WHEN your_col = 'strawberry' THEN 3 ELSE 4 END

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answered Jan 25 '11 at 1:55

OMG Ponies 103k1192175 feedback If this is going to be a short-lived requirement, use a case statement. However, if you

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think it may be around for a while, and it's always going to be orange/apple/strawberry order (or even if not - see below), you may want to think about sacrificing some disk space to gain some speed. Create a new column in your table called or_ap_st and use an insert/update trigger to populate it with the number 1, 2 or 3, depending on the the value of your fruit column. Then index on it. Since the only time the data in that column will change is when the row changes, that's the best time to do it. The cost will then be incurred on a small number of writes rather than a large number of reads, hence amortised over the select statements. Your query will then be a blindingly fast: select field1, field2 from table1 order by or_ap_st; with no per-row functions killing the performance. And, if you want other sort orders as well, well, that's why I called the column or_ap_st. You can add as many other sorting columns as you need.
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paxdiablo 227k29329690 feedback

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What I do in that case is ORDER BY CASE WHEN FRUIT = 'Orange' THEN 'A'

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WHEN FRUIT = 'Apple' THEN 'B' WHEN FRUIT = 'Strawberry' THEN 'C' ELSE FRUIT