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From: "Shakespeare" <whatsin@xs4all.nl>
Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.misc
References: <1210a149-d43e-48a8-bbd7-9a688c96fa88@y38g2000hsy.googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Q] Sorting a column
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 08:58:50 +0200
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"digory" <digory@gmx.net> schreef in bericht 
news:1210a149-d43e-48a8-bbd7-9a688c96fa88@y38g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...
> Hi
>
> I have a table T with two columns NAME (VARCHAR2) and POS (NUMBER). I
> want to write an UPDATE query, which updates the column POS such that
> its values correspond to the alphabetical order of NAME.
>
> UPDATE
>   T t1
> SET pos = (SELECT ROWID FROM T t2 WHERE t1.NAME = t2.NAME ORDER BY
> NAME)
>
> That does not work, because the WHERE clause returns a single row,
> which will always have a ROWID of 1.
>
> How do I do this? (It's possible with a PROCEDURE, of course, but I
> want to avoid them.)

ROWID? Don't you mean rownum?
I don't think tables will ever have rows with the same rowid (except by 
coincidence)

Shakespeare