From: | Robert Paulsen <robert(at)paulsenonline(dot)net> |
---|---|
To: | pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org |
Subject: | Re: sort character data in arbitrary order? |
Date: | 2006-01-14 23:35:51 |
Message-ID: | 200601141735.51758.robert@paulsenonline.net |
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Lists: | pgsql-general |
On Saturday 14 January 2006 14:10, Michael Fuhr wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 14, 2006 at 01:38:52PM -0600, Robert Paulsen wrote:
> > SELECT foo, bar, baz, FROM my_table WHERE state ~ '[abc]'
> > ORDER BY state ASC LIMIT 1.
> >
> > This works as expected. My problem is that I am relying on the collating
> > sequence of the letters a-z and the desirability of states may not always
> > be in this order.
>
> How do you determine desirability? You could order by an expression
> that evaluates to a state's desirability.
I don't determine the desirability. That is outside of my control. Today it is
a>b>c but tomorrrow it might be r>g>x. I generate the query with a perl
script and can modify the script query to suit the current conditions. I just
need to come up with the basic structure of the query. The one I have works
but only because a>b>c matches the collating sequence of the alphabet.
In another reply to my question Andrew came up with something I think I can
use -- another table that maps state characters to numeric values that can be
used in the ORDER BY part of the query.
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