Comments on: SQL SERVER – ORDER BY ColumnName vs ORDER BY ColumnNumber

By: SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #009 « SQL Server Journey with SQL Authority

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 01:31:18 +0000

[...] ORDER BY ColumnName vs ORDER BY ColumnNumber [...]

By: Sachin

Sachin — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 04:04:47 +0000

How to Avoid Order by Completely . Example
I have a query

select datakey from V_Definitions
where DataKey in (
‘FLASH1ZZZZ’,
’042I01OAMJDA’,
’035CY40IMJ’,’034C0ZD1MJ’) and Site = ‘PJ’ and System = ‘GO’

and I want the output in the same order od the datakey that i have provided in the “in”.

Output received from query
034C0ZD1MJ
035CY40IMJ
042I01OAMJDA
FLASH1ZZZZ

Expected Ouput
FLASH1ZZZZ
042I01OAMJDA
035CY40IMJ
034C0ZD1MJ

how can a default sort of ASC be avoided ?

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:49:03 +0000

Agree entirely with Pinal – if you go back to the code three months later, no way will you remember what order by 3,2 is supposed to mean. Is it right? Is it wrong? There is no way to tell.

By: pinaldave

pinaldave — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:31:41 +0000

If you want to compare both of them then you need to compare following

dbcc freeproccache
GO
SELECT DepartmentID,GroupName, Name, ModifiedDate
FROM HumanResources.Department
ORDER BY 3,2

dbcc freeproccache
GO
SELECT DepartmentID,GroupName, Name, ModifiedDate
FROM HumanResources.Department
ORDER BY Name, GroupName

By: Judep

Judep — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:23:33 +0000

Under the same circumstance, if column numbers are used then there is a significant number of logical reads vs the column names

By: Judep

Judep — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:18:31 +0000

Just checked this out and noticed the execution plans are deferent

dbcc freeproccache
GO
SELECT DepartmentID,GroupName, Name, ModifiedDate
FROM HumanResources.Department
ORDER BY 3,2

dbcc freeproccache
GO
SELECT DepartmentID,GroupName, Name, ModifiedDate
FROM HumanResources.Department
ORDER BY GroupName, Name

By: madhivanan

madhivanan — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:28:54 +0000

It is safe as long as no other columns are specified in that posistion in SELECT statement

By: Tof

Tof — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:28:01 +0000

Hi Pinal,

while I agree with you, number ordering very useful in a development environment and makes developers more productive.

I often use it when the select list holds a long subquery that I need to order by in SQL 2000. It saves me copying and pasting the whole thing in the order by clause, which makes the query look messy.

By: Brad Schulz

Brad Schulz — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 22:58:47 +0000

Hi Pinal…

I don’t know if you read this blog post or not, but this is an amusing article I wrote on this subject, talking about the ORDER BY clause and using column aliases vs ordinal numbers vs functions:

http://bradsruminations.blogspot.com/2010/01/trolls-puzzle-sql-fable.html

–Brad

By: Wallace Wells

Wallace Wells — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 18:36:41 +0000

Hi Pinal!
With my usual pleasure and laugh have I read another brilliant article of yours on Advanced SQL Server approaches. As usual you expect people to understand your point based on Experience and Knowledge level comparable to yours. These are not abundant around though.. So guys are just trying to understand say which column would you use for ordering in a query run against table with 20 million rows. But to understand it you have to first know how to assign Primary Key, which column to put Clustered Index on and by what reasons. Only then you will begin to understand and enjoy Pinal Daves blog! Otherwise, according to some comments, it is kind of complex. Thank you for teaching us! Keep up the excellent job! Have a happy and joyfull Holidays!

By: Ramdas

Ramdas — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 15:57:12 +0000

Nice post to bring out the differences between ordering by column name and column number. For me it has been by col name majority of the times.

By: madhivanan

madhivanan — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 13:05:47 +0000

It will work that way. But the point is when you use column numbers in the order by clause, if some columns are added at the beginning of the select statement, it will be ordered differently. If you use column names in the order by clause, they wont be any problems

By: Karthikeyan

Karthikeyan — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:56:36 +0000

Pinal,

Hi, I am totally mess up with the example you have given. In the First query you Order the column by OrderName namely “GroupName,Name”. But when you are ordering by ColumnNumber inthe second query you ordered by “ModifiedDate,Name”i.e “3,2″ refers to the Columns orders in the select statement not with the table ordering structure.Please try this and let me know.

By: Madhivanan

Madhivanan — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 08:44:06 +0000

You can use it in a dynamic sql where column names are unknown. Refer this post for more informations
http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/madhivanan/archive/2010/12/27/order-by-columnname-vs-order-by-columnnumber.aspx

By: aasim abdullah

aasim abdullah — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 07:24:01 +0000

Thanks Guru for correcting me.

By: amit

amit — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 06:04:54 +0000

hi, can u put some more light on this topic. where exactly we can use ORDER BY ColumnNumber and its *not* possible to use ORDER BY ColumnName instead?

By: amit

amit — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 06:04:08 +0000

hi, can u put some more light on this topic. where exactly we can use ORDER BY ColumnNumber and its possible to use ORDER BY ColumnName instead?

By: G.Naresh Babu

G.Naresh Babu — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 04:28:58 +0000

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