I was curious to find out why all the other sorts work the same but order by dbms_random.value ( which also returns a number like sqrt (3.14) ) behaves totally different. Any ideas ?
When you order by dbms_random, Oracle will generate a random number for each row and sort on those random numbers. When you order by a constant real value, Oracle has no way to order the results, so they will be returned in whatever order they are retrieved from the database.
Also could you please tell me what does it mean when someone says order by <non integer some_constant> . An integer constant would refer to the positional parameter but what about a real value which is not an integer ?
Aside from SQL brain-teasers, I cannot imagine a practical use for ORDER BY <<constant real number>>.
Justin Cave Distributed Database Consulting
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