Re: Overriding natural order of query results for a subset

Have you considered use of the "nulls last" option in order by (
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/13/queries-order.html)?

Alternatively, you could write your own type, with its own ordering
primitive 😉

On Sun, 30 May 2021, 12:15 am Laura Smith, <
n5d9xq3ti233xiyif2vp(at)protonmail(dot)ch> wrote:

> Hi
>
> I've got a bit of a puzzle that I'm not quite sure how to approach.
>
> Let's say I've got a table of bios, so :
>
> create table bios (
> first_name text not null,
> last_name text not null,
> person_title text,
> person_short_bio text
> );
>
> Now, the "natural order" would be a standard "select * from bios order by
> last_name". Basic stuff, no problem.
>
> The problem is that my use-case calls for a scenario where due to protocol
> certain people may be designated as "VIP" and therefore need to appear at
> the top. In addition, protocol may dictate that those "VIP" people
> themselves may (sometimes but not always) need to be ordered in a specific
> manner.
>
> Bear in mind that there may be a large enough number of people in this
> table that the naïve approach of manually assigning everyone an order is
> neither practical or desirable. Hence the need for an "override" which
> would mean only a subset of people would need specific parameters.
>
> Any ideas ?
>
> Thanks !
>
> Laura
>
>
>
>
>