Question

I have a query to fetch the top 50 entries based on a total_score field. From these top 50, I need to be able to order them by any of their other fields. I tried using multiple ORDER BY statements, but the result set never changes. Here’s my query:

SELECT 
    e.id, e.name , e.total_score 
FROM 
    entry e 
ORDER BY 
    e.total_score DESC, e.name ASC

I think I understand why this doesn’t do what I need, so I suppose my question is how can I achieve my goal? In the end I always need the 50 entries with the highest total_score, but this selection should be then orderable by any other field.

If this isn’t possible in MySQL, I can do it with PHP, but I’d rather let the DB handle this.

Note: I’m using Doctrine 1.2 on top of a MySQL 5 DB.

Thanks!

Answer 1

ORDER BY, when used with multiple columns, only uses the subsequent columns in case of tie in the previous ones.

Try using nested queries

   SELECT * FROM(
    SELECT TOP 50
        e.id, e.name , e.total_score, e.(YOURFIELD)
    FROM 
        entry e 
    ORDER BY 
        e.total_score DESC ) x ORDER BY x.(YOURFIELD)