Hi all,
Using mysqld (mysql Ver 12.22 Distrib 4.0.18, for
pc-linux (i686)) and have come across some funky SQL
code that appears to work occassionally - maybe,
depending on the sql client I'm using, but I'm not
sure why/not.
I'm using mysql from the command line client, as well
as a jdbc client (Netbeans), and MySQL Control Center
Center client.
I read you can use 'order by null' if you don't want
MySQL to do its default ordering of 'group by'
results, but this 'order by if( <some_condition>,
scalar1, scalar2 )' stuff doesn't seem correct to me.
I understand that the following works, and it makes
sense to me:
mysql> select fname, lname
-> from employee
-> order by 2;
Works. This will order by the 2nd column, lname.
Great.
But should the following work? I would think not, and
it doesn't seem to, but not everyone is convinced:
mysql> select fname, lname
-> from employee
-> order by if(fname is not null, 1, 2);
Works. Well, it executes, but it does not order by
the first or second column, just the natural order of
the table it seems.
One added feature is that our 'order by if' function
looks like this:
-> order by if(fname is null, 0, 1);
Doing an 'order by 0' produces an error when not
inside an 'if' function, but inside, it seems to be
effectively ignored.
I'm a bit confused right now on what the behavior of
this thing is, but it *seems* to me like this function
is *not* working at all - that is, the use of the
if(whatever_you_want,blah,blah)' seems to have no
effect whatsoever on the ordering of the query
results.
Can someone shed some light? Thanks.
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