Sorting Order - Urgent Help.....

Question

Hi all,
I am doing migration from SQL Server 2K to Oracle 9.2.0.5.0.
I need to compare data from Oracle and SQL Server.
What is the default sorting behavior for Oracle? I mean I have a select statement like -
     Select <column> from <table>
This table doesn’t have a primary key. It doesn’t have an index also. It has two columns – col1 is NUMBER and col2 is VARCHAR2 (50). When I retrieve data from Oracle it is sorting according to ROWID. As per my understanding ROWID is in the same order in which data was loaded in the table. In one case, I have found that ROWID is different from the data load order. My requirement is to order both Oracle data and SQL Server data so that I can compare them row by row. In absence of a key and an index what is the parameter based on which oracle sorts the data for a table?
I have NLS_SORT=BINARY and NLS_LANG=BINARY.
The result of a query 'select * from table1':
col1 col2
3 Unknown
3 CAN-seeking
3 Preclinical
3 Phase I
3 Phase II A
3 Phase II B
3 Phase III
3 Registration
3 Phase IV
4 Discovery
4 Unknown
4 CAN-seeking
4 Preclinical
4 Phase I
4 Phase II A
4 Phase II B
4 Phase III
4 Registration
1 Phase IV
4 Phase IV
5 Discovery
The result of 'Select * from table1 order by col1':
col1 col2
3 Unknown
3 CAN-seeking
3 Preclinical
3 Phase I
3 Phase II A
3 Phase II B
3 Phase III
3 Registration
3 Phase IV
4 Discovery
4 Unknown
4 CAN-seeking
4 Preclinical
4 Phase I
4 Phase II A
4 Phase IV
4 Phase II B
4 Phase III
4 Registration
5 Discovery
Can anybody help me on this....
Thanks in advance.....

Answer 1

Doesn't Oracle sort by ROWID by default? What is the order in which it fetches the results from the result set? I am really lost at this..... I have used this logic:
Sort by primary key, if it exists
Sort by first NUMBER column in absence of primary key.
However, the order from SQL Server and Oracle when sorted on col1 as in my explanation is different.
SQL Server uses SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. The SQL Server result for -
'select * from table1 order by col2' is:
col1 col2
3     Unknown
3     CAN-seeking
3     Preclinical
3     Phase I
3     Phase II A
3     Phase II B
3     Phase III
3     Registration
3     Phase IV
4     Discovery
4     Unknown
4     CAN-seeking
4     Preclinical
4     Phase I
4     Phase II A
4     Phase II B
4     Phase III
4     Registration
4     Phase IV
5     Discovery
Thanks