How to ORDER BY grouped fields in MySQL?

To ORDER BY grouped fields, use ORDER BY CASE along with IN(). CASE evaluates different conditions whereas ORDER BY sort values in ascending or descending order. The MySQL IN() is used to find a match.

Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable (    Value varchar(40) ); Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.52 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable values('John'); Query OK, 1 row affected (0.22 sec) mysql> insert into DemoTable values('100&101'); Query OK, 1 row affected (0.09 sec) mysql> insert into DemoTable values('Sam'); Query OK, 1 row affected (0.09 sec) mysql> insert into DemoTable values('90'); Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec) mysql> insert into DemoTable values('Mike45'); Query OK, 1 row affected (0.17 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+---------+ | Value | +---------+ | John    | | 100&101 | | Sam     | | 90     | | Mike45 | +---------+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to order by grouped field −

mysql> select *from DemoTable    order by case when Value IN('John','Sam','Mike45') then 100    when Value='90' then 101    when Value='100&101' then 102    else 103 end;

This will produce the following output −

+---------+ | Value | +---------+ | John    | | Sam    | | Mike45 | | 90     | | 100&101 | +---------+ 5 rows in set (0.03 sec)