Re: [GENERAL] way to custom sort column by fixed strings, then by field's content

[Adrian Klaver]

On 02/03/2014 10:53 AM, Susan Cassidy wrote:
I have a column that contains items like
'absolute root'
'root 3'
'root 4'
'root 5'
'scene 1'
'scene 2'
'scene 3'
and I would like them to sort in that order.

I tried:
select sti.description, sc.description from scene_thing_instances sti
join scenes sc on sti.scene_id = sc.scene_id
   order by CASE sc.description
             when (sc.description = 'absolute root'::text) then 1
             when (sc.description ilike 'root%') then  2
             else 3
            END;

I was starting with this, and was going to add perhaps another case
statement.

But it gives me:
ERROR:  operator does not exist: text = boolean
LINE 3:             when (sc.description = 'absolute root'::text) th...
                     ^
HINT:  No operator matches the given name and argument type(s). You
might need to add explicit type casts.

I don't understand this because description is a text column, not
boolean, and certainly 'absolute root'::text is a text string.

This is 9.2.

Ideas, anyone?

select sti.description, sc.description from scene_thing_instances sti 
join scenes sc on sti.scene_id = sc.scene_id
  order by sc.description, CASE
            when (sc.description = 'absolute root'::text) then 1
            when (sc.description ilike 'root%') then  2
            else 3
           END;


Thanks,
Susan


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.kla...@gmail.com


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