HELP sorting a table before hierarchical query

Is there any way I can sort a table (short of completely recreating it,unless there is a -good- way of automating that) so that a hierarchical query will retrieve the information in alphabetical order (within each subgroup of the hierarchy)?

The query will be

select lpad('&nbsp',5*(level-1))||current_concept,parent_concept from tables.concept_hierarchy
start with parent_concept='Concepts'
connect by prior current_concept=parent_concept;

This worked fine and was easy to read when I created the table using 'create ... as select ... order by' but after any insertions into the structure the ordering is lost. I've tried to copy all the records to another table, sorting them as I go, and then copying them back(again with 'order by') but the order is still lost. I've tried this in SQL*PLUS and with a cursor in a procedure. I've also tried using a view to sort the records before doing the hierarchical query but this is not supported.

The readability of the results of this query is crucial so I have to do this somehow. I'm hoping I'm not going to have to recreate the table every time I insert something. This will be output to a web page.

Thanks in advance. Received on Tue Aug 24 1999 - 12:13:32 CDT