Re: ORDER BY question

Give them a list of fields they can order by, and retrieve the field number,
then you can try

select last_name, first_name, emp_no from emp_table  where ...
 order by decode (field_number,

                  1, last_name,
                  2, first_name,
                  3, to_char(emp_no,'99999'))

-- 
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Kind reGards
     \ /   |
      X    |
     / \   x
     Gerard

David A. Gershman <dgers_at_pizza> schreef in artikel
<623hpt$42a_at_hacgate2.hac.com>...


> In a procedure with the select statement:

> 

>   select Last_name, First_Name from Emp_Table Where (Last_Name) like

 'GER%'


>   order by 2, 1;

> 

> I'd like the ORDER BY values to be provided by an HTML form user.  Hence

> the 2 and 1 would be in VarChar2 variables.  

> 

> Question:  Is there a way to 'convert' the VarChar2 variables into a data

> type that can be used by the ORDER BY?  I've tried To_Number() and it

> doesn't work, nor does putting VarChar2 variables containing the column

> names in place of 2 and 1.

> 

> i.e. the following don't work...

> 

>   select ..... Order by Search1, Search2; 

>     -- Where Search1 := 'First_Name' and Search2 := 'Last_Name'

> 

> nor does

> 

>   select ..... Order by To_Number( Search1 ), To_Number( Search2 );

>     -- Where Search1 := '2' and Search2 := '1'

> 

> Any and all help would be *greatly* appreciated!  Thanks in advance.

> 

> 

> --

> 

> "Artificial Intelligence:  Making computers behave like they do in the

 movies."
>
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> David A. Gershman : SSE Lab Administrator, MTS Comp Sci/Math

> Hughes Information Technology Systems, Fullerton California

> (714) 446-2669  -  dgers_at_sed.hac.com

>
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>