Question

I have a table with 2 date columns:

create_date and modify_date.
create_date is always set and modify_date sometimes.

Now I want to order my query by both of them with the same priority.

If I do this:

order by create_date desc, modify_date desc

I first get all rows sorted by create_date and then by modify_date but I want the rows sorted by both in the same priority. I need this:

create_date  |  modify_date
2011-12-31   |  -
2011-12-01   |  2011-12-30
2011-12-29   |  -

Answer 1

select *
from yourtable
order by coalesce(modify_date, create_date) desc