On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Jay A. Kreibich <j...@kreibi.ch> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 08:37:10AM -0500, Brad Stiles scratched on the wall:
>> >> For my own edification, why the "order by 1" clause?
>> >
>> > To sort them in ascending order of table name, which might make
>> > old-fashioned capers like visual scrutiny a little easier.
>>
>> OK then, why would one not use the column name?
>
> It does.
>
> The given statement (with a bit of editing) was:
>
> SELECT 'drop table ' || name || ';'
> FROM sqlite_master
> WHERE type = 'table'
> AND name GLOB 'X[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]'
> ORDER BY 1;
>
> You'll notice there are no commas between the SELECT and FROM... the
> SELECT statement only produces one column. That column consists of a
> series of strings in the format:
>
> 'drop table <name>;'
>
> Since each string starts with the exact same prefix ('drop table ')
> the end result is that it will sort by table name. And, because of
> the GLOB format, it will sort by the numeric value of the table name.
>
> -j
>
> --
> Jay A. Kreibich < J A Y @ K R E I B I.C H >
>
> "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have
> a protractor." "I'll go home and see if I can scrounge up a ruler
> and a piece of string." --from Anathem by Neal Stephenson
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