Have you considered use of the "nulls last" option in order by ( https://www.postgresql.org/docs/13/queries-order.html)?
Alternatively, you could write your own type, with its own ordering primitive 😉 On Sun, 30 May 2021, 12:15 am Laura Smith, < n5d9xq3ti233xiyif...@protonmail.ch> wrote: > Hi > > I've got a bit of a puzzle that I'm not quite sure how to approach. > > Let's say I've got a table of bios, so : > > create table bios ( > first_name text not null, > last_name text not null, > person_title text, > person_short_bio text > ); > > Now, the "natural order" would be a standard "select * from bios order by > last_name". Basic stuff, no problem. > > The problem is that my use-case calls for a scenario where due to protocol > certain people may be designated as "VIP" and therefore need to appear at > the top. In addition, protocol may dictate that those "VIP" people > themselves may (sometimes but not always) need to be ordered in a specific > manner. > > Bear in mind that there may be a large enough number of people in this > table that the naïve approach of manually assigning everyone an order is > neither practical or desirable. Hence the need for an "override" which > would mean only a subset of people would need specific parameters. > > Any ideas ? > > Thanks ! > > Laura > > > > >
