John Sheehan : Blog - Latest Comments in Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

SandraMillhouse — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:02:53 -0000

This is indeed a better way to order a column. Still, the difference isn't that big so I don't see why anyone should bother. Or maybe the difference is noticeable in a very large database.
Sandra @ Cheap VPS

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Miguel_TX — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:51:28 -0000

I forgot to mention that this way should also work in SQL Server 2000 for anyone still using that.

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Miguel_TX — Tue, 26 May 2009 18:47:28 -0000

I just tried this way of sorting and for the query I was running (a very big one) it took twice as long to run than it did with my own dynamic sorting.

Everyone, please use this instead - it's faster when it counts:
ORDER BY
(CASE WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 1 THEN FirstName END),
(CASE WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 1 THEN LastName END),
(CASE WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 2 THEN LastName END),
(CASE WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 2 THEN FirstName END),
(CASE WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 3 THEN LastName END) DESC,
(CASE WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 3 THEN FirstName END) DESC

I ask that the author of this post (John Sheehan) try it and update this post with his findings if he finds that it works better. Thank you.

I can't take credit for this way of doing it as I found it months ago on another posting - but I can't remember where.

- Miguel_TX

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

John Sheehan — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:02:09 -0000

Sorry, I don't know off hand. Try stackoverflow.com

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

li — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:00:34 -0000

How can I use

ORDER BY
CASE @AccountOperator
WHEN '>' THEN UserLastName
END ASC,
CASE @AccountOperator
WHEN '<' THEN UserFirstName
END DESC

when UserLastName is an alias?(without using sub query)

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Alexander — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:49:41 -0000

Great work, thanks!

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Mab — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:50:16 -0000

Thanks for the article.
Just a quick question. Is it possible to write this dynamic Order By with DISTINCT, as I am getting error with DISTINCT in my select statement.

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

john — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 15:49:15 -0000

An other alternative work around is not varchar columns casting sql_variant
fitCount is int

elect * from tFittest
declare @sortCriteria varchar(50) set @sortCriteria = 'name'
declare @sortDirection varchar(4) set @sortDirection = 'desc'

select fitCount, name, wwid, @sortCriteria, @sortDirection, cast(fitCount as sql_variant)
from tFittest
order by
case when @sortDirection = 'ASC' then
case when @sortCriteria = 'fitCount' then (cast(fitCount as sql_variant) )
when @sortCriteria = 'name' then (name )
end
end ASC,
case when @sortDirection = 'DESC' then
case when @sortCriteria = 'fitCount' then (cast(fitCount as sql_variant) )
when @sortCriteria = 'name' then (name )
end
end DESC

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Rash — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:52:06 -0000

The great job......................easily explained

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Uncle — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:48:28 -0000

Thank you soooo much. You saved my life! :)

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

demvin01 — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:05:40 -0000

Great tip, thanks !

About your sentence : "CASE kind of works, but its limited (only one column, no sort directions, datatype issues, etc)" I just want to say that you can control the direction with multiple CASE statements :
Order By Case @orderby when 'DATEASC' then StartDate when 'NAMEASC' then LastName + FirstName end ASC, Case @orderby when 'DATEDESC' then StartDate when 'NAMEDESC' then LastName+ FirstName end DESC

Also, I didn't run into any datatype problem in with the CASE, but I only tried with nvarchars and datetime, so I'm not sure about this.

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Francisco — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:46:45 -0000

Excellent way.- Thanks

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

RedLine — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 05:14:32 -0000

Great thanks!!! Very powerfull, clear and intelligence solution.

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

rob — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 14:24:48 -0000

Very nice work. A fun trick to look at too! Thanks for sharing...

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

John Sheehan — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 10:02:28 -0000

Hi Ken,
I kind of thought that would be the case for larger queries. I'm only using this method on a query for under 100 rows so I haven't run into any performance issues yet.

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Ken — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:37:58 -0000

This is a neat way of doing dynamic sorting but performance on my query is very bad with this method. Granted it is a large query. But other methods out perform this.

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Steve — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 06:47:58 -0000

Absolute magic - very well explained and saved me a real headache. Thanks a million!

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Sumit Thomas — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 09:56:22 -0000

Excellent post! A very clean way of writing SPs with dynamic order by.

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

John Sheehan — Wed, 02 May 2007 15:13:06 -0000

I like it Lamprey!

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Lamprey — Wed, 02 May 2007 15:10:46 -0000

(NOTE: If you want to output the RANK() result and order by the same value, you have to specify the whole line twice as SQL server doesnâ€™t appear to be accepting dynamically created columns as ORDER BY parameters). Here are the results:

Almost, you can get the rank back without specifing it twice:

CREATE PROCEDURE CustomerGetFinal
@CustomerTypeID int
AS
BEGIN
SELECT
CustomerID,
FirstName,
LastName,
CustomerTypeID,
CASE
WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 1 THEN (RANK() OVER (ORDER BY FirstName, LastName))
WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 2 THEN (RANK() OVER (ORDER BY LastName, FirstName))
WHEN @CustomerTypeID = 3 THEN (RANK() OVER (ORDER BY LastName DESC, FirstName DESC))
END AS RankNumber
FROM
Customer
WHERE
CustomerTypeID = @CustomerTypeID
ORDER BY
RankNumber
END

Re: Slightly more dynamic ORDER BY in SQL Server 2005

Jared Roberts — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 01:19:26 -0000

This is a great post... I have been trying to figure out a good way to do this forever. Good work.