Question

This is what I came up with to float ‘default’ to the top and sort the rest:

SELECT        'default' AS name, 'AAA' AS tag
UNION
SELECT        name, name AS tag
FROM            (SELECT DISTINCT TOP (100) PERCENT name
                          FROM            AccountManager
                          WHERE        (name <> 'default')
                          ORDER BY name) AS derivedtbl_1
ORDER BY tag

Is there a less complicated/better way?

Answer 1

SELECT name 
FROM AccountManager
GROUP BY name /*To retain DISTINCT semantics from original query*/
ORDER BY CASE WHEN name = 'default' THEN 0 ELSE 1 END, name

NB:

SELECT DISTINCT name 
FROM AccountManager
ORDER BY CASE WHEN name = 'default' THEN 0 ELSE 1 END, name

would fail with ORDER BY items must appear in the select list if SELECT DISTINCT is specified. hence use of GROUP BY