order by precedence?

[entoone]

I know how to use the order by, but wondered if there is an order of
precedence in using it.

Facts: hcounty is a county that someone puts in a home county in which they
live. In the comments they are also
allowed to put text, that might contain a county listing also. I want to
have the results put the records
that have hcounty matches first, then the records that have a county match
in the comments field after the first set of records. I have tried all sorts
of order by and group by and can't get the result I'm looking for. Any hint
or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

$query = "SELECT * FROM contacts WHERE hcounty ='$searchcounty' or comments
like '%$searchcounty%' order by state, hcounty, dtestart ";

[Andy Hassall]

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 18:35:46 GMT, "entoone" <en*****@pacbell.net> wrote:

I know how to use the order by, but wondered if there is an order of
precedence in using it.

Facts: hcounty is a county that someone puts in a home county in which they
live. In the comments they are also
allowed to put text, that might contain a county listing also. I want to
have the results put the records
that have hcounty matches first, then the records that have a county match
in the comments field after the first set of records. I have tried all sorts
of order by and group by and can't get the result I'm looking for. Any hint
or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

$query = "SELECT * FROM contacts WHERE hcounty ='$searchcounty' or comments
like '%$searchcounty%' order by state, hcounty, dtestart ";

Perhaps:

ORDER BY CASE
WHEN hcounty = '$searchcounty' THEN 0
WHEN comments like '%$searchcounty%' THEN 1
ELSE 2
END

(followed by whatever you want to sort the two halves by within themselves)

--
Andy Hassall (an**@andyh.co.uk) icq(5747695) (http://www.andyh.co.uk)
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