description | description -------------------+------------- 18 cm long wrench | Scene 1 absolute root | blue screwdriver | Scene 1 red toolbox | Scene 1 root 3 | Scene 1 root 4 | Scene 2 root 6 | Scene 3 small wrench | Scene 1 tire | Scene 2
I have a column that contains items like 'absolute root' 'root 3' 'root 4' 'root 5' 'scene 1' 'scene 2' 'scene 3'
and I would like them to sort in that order.
I tried: select sti.description, sc.description from scene_thing_instances sti join scenes sc on sti.scene_id = sc.scene_id order by CASE sc.description when (sc.description = 'absolute root'::text) then 1 when (sc.description ilike 'root%') then 2 else 3 END;
I was starting with this, and was going to add perhaps another case statement.
But it gives me: ERROR: operator does not exist: text = boolean LINE 3: when (sc.description = 'absolute root'::text) th... ^ HINT: No operator matches the given name and argument type(s). You might need to add explicit type casts.
I don't understand this because description is a text column, not boolean, and certainly 'absolute root'::text is a text string.
This is 9.2.
Ideas, anyone?
select sti.description, sc.description from scene_thing_instances sti join scenes sc on sti.scene_id = sc.scene_id order by sc.description, CASE when (sc.description = 'absolute root'::text) then 1 when (sc.description ilike 'root%') then 2 else 3 END;
