Question

I have an annoying SQL statement that seem simple but it looks awfull. I want the sql to return a resultset with userdata ordered so that a certain user is the first row in the resultset if that users emailaddress is in the companies table.

I have this SQL that returns what i want but i think it looks awful:

select 1 as o, *  from Users u where companyid = 1 and email = (select email from companies where id=1) union  select 2 as o, *  from Users u where companyid = 1 and email <> (select email from companies where id=1) order by o 

And by the way, the emailaddress from the user table can be in many companies so there cant be a join on the emailaddress 🙁

Do you have any ideas how to improve that statement?

Im using Microsoft SQL Server 2000.

Edit: Im using this one:

select *, case when u.email=(select email from companies where Id=1) then 1 else 2 end AS SortMeFirst  from Users u  where u.companyId=1  order by SortMeFirst 

Its way more elegant than mine. Thanks Richard L!

Answer 1

You could do something like this..

        select CASE                  WHEN exists (select email from companies c where c.Id = u.ID and c.Email = u.Email) THEN 1                  ELSE 2 END as SortMeFirst,   *      From Users u      where companyId = 1      order by SortMeFirst