Question

Using PHP and MySQL, is there a way to use a different ORDER BY for each of the SELECT statements in a UNION?

SELECT * FROM the_table WHERE color = 'blue' ORDER BY price ASC LIMIT 5
UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM the_table WHERE color = 'red' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 10

The above statement does not work. It seems you can only do an ORDER BY on the final result set. Is there a way to do an ORDER BY on the first SELECT then a different ORDER BY on the second SELECT using UNION?

Answer 1

(SELECT * FROM the_table WHERE color = 'blue' ORDER BY price ASC LIMIT 5)
UNION ALL
(SELECT * FROM the_table WHERE color = 'red' ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 10)