Question

I’m trying to perform a SELECT with an IN clause and I would like to be able to have the results returned in the same order as the elements in my list for the IN. For example:

SELECT * FROM orders WHERE order_no IN ('B123', 'B483', 'B100', 'B932', ...);

and I would want them to come back in that same order. Ideally, it’d be great if I could have a statement like:

SELECT * FROM orders WHERE order_no IN ('B123', 'B483', 'B100', 'B932', ...)
ORDER BY ('B123', 'B483', 'B100', 'B932', ...);

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I’ve seen examples of queries using the CASE or DECODE keywords to define some sort of custom ordering. But, in all those examples, their ordering was for a predetermined set of options. Whereas, my ordering is completely dependent on what my user enters for their search criteria, so there could be a list of 2 options or a list of 100 to order by…

Any ideas? Some Oracle feature I don’t know of, or some way to use CASE or DECODE for a dynamic set?

Answer 1

Insert the values into a temporary table and join your select to that.

You can then do a natural order on your temporary table column.

CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE sort_table (
  value       VARCHAR2(100),
  sort_order  NUMBER
) ON COMMIT DELETE ROWS;

INSERT INTO sort_table VALUES ('B123',1);
INSERT INTO sort_table VALUES ('B483',2);
... etc. ...

select * from mytable
inner join sort_table
on mytable.mycolumn = sort_table.value
order by sort_table.sort_order;

To clear the temporary table, just COMMIT.