How to display output serially ?

Question

hi,
i have a table and there is a coloum abc, in that data are like that
PEN
PENCIL
BAG
so now i want a sql query which will display as per my choice serially , like i want pencil should b first then BAG should be second and so on..
thanks
Edited by: Hi FRNzzz!! on Apr 22, 2010 10:50 PM

Answer 1

Hi,
What are the rules which determine that 'LG08' comes before 'LH07', and 'LH07' comes before 'LH09'?
It looks like there are no rules, other than "'LG08' comes before 'LH07', and 'LH07' comes before 'LH09'"; that is, the order of those strings has nothing to do with the strings themselves.
If that's the case, then you should have a table to store information that is related to the different possible m_vr values.
You may already have such a table, for other uses. If so, add a column for the sort order.
If you do not already have such a table, create one:
CREATE TABLE     m_vr_lookup
(       m_vr          VARCHAR2 (4)     PRIMARY KEY
,     sort_order     NUMBER
);The populate the table with each possible value of m_vr and its relative sort order:
INSERT INTO m_vr_lookup (m_vr, sort_order) VALUES ('LG08',  100);
INSERT INTO m_vr_lookup (m_vr, sort_order) VALUES ('LH07',  200);
INSERT INTO m_vr_lookup (m_vr, sort_order) VALUES ('LH09',  300);
INSERT INTO m_vr_lookup (m_vr, sort_order) VALUES ('LG01',  400);
COMMIT;For sort_order, you don't have to use numbers that are multiples of 100. You don't even have to use numbers. I did, because they're convenient. If you add new m_vrf bvalues later, you can give them sort_orders like 150, 125 or 100.003.
Wheneve you need to use this sort order, join to the m_vr_lookup table, like this:
SELECT       mvr.*
FROM            mvr
LEFT OUTER JOIN       m_vr_lookup     ON     mvr.m_vr     = m_vr_lookup.m_vr
ORDER BY  mvr.m_sno
,            m_vr_lookup.sort_order
;Use an outer join (like I did above) if you're not sure that all the m_vr values in mvr are also in m_vr_lookup.
If you are sure (for example, if you made a foreign key constraint on mvr), and if mvr.m_vr is never NULL, then you can use a more efficient inner join; just change "LEFT OUTER JOIN" to "JOIN" in the query above.
If you need help, post CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements for your sample data (including the lookup table). Also post the results you want from that data, and an explanation of how you get those results.
Make sure the results you post correspond to the data you post.
In your last message, you said the sample data for m_sno=12345 was the following 5 rows:
12345 LG01 01-JAN-03
12345 LG02 05-FEB-03
12345 LG08 03-JUN-07
12345 LH07 03-FEB-06
12345 L202 01-FEB-03but the output for that m_sno was 6 rows, including:
12345 LH09 05-FEB-08Was that a mistake, or is part of the problem generating new rows?