Need to overcome UNION / ORDER BY restriction - Mailing list pgsql-sql

From Timo
Subject Need to overcome UNION / ORDER BY restriction
Date
Msg-id bl9fh3$1krk$1@news.hub.org
Whole thread Raw
Responses Re: Need to overcome UNION / ORDER BY restriction  (Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to>)
Re: Need to overcome UNION / ORDER BY restriction  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
List pgsql-sql
I have a table:
id  | priority | seniority
-----+----------+-----------902 |        2 |       271902 |        1 |       271902 |        3 |       271924 |
2|       581924 |        1 |       581924 |        3 |       581935 |        1 |       276935 |        2 |       276972
|       2 |       275
 
(9 rows)

I'd need to get a result set where rows are sorted according to these rules:

1. first all rows with priority = 1 sorted according to seniority
2. then the rest of the rows sorted by seniority, priority

Something like this:

SELECT * from foo where priority = 1 order by seniority   union select * from foo where priority > 1 order by
seniority,priority
 

but this gives parse error because of the restrictions with ORDER BY and
UNION (I suppose..)



select * from foo order by case when priority = 1 then priority else
seniority end;

goes fine, but it's not quite enough and when I try

select * from foo order by case when priority = 1 then priority else
seniority, priority end;

it's parse error at or near ",".

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Timo

---------------

CREATE TABLE foo (   id integer,   priority integer,   seniority integer
);


INSERT INTO foo VALUES (902, 2, 271);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES (902, 1, 271);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES (902, 3, 271);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES (924, 2, 581);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES (924, 1, 581);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES (924, 3, 581);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES (935, 1, 276);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES (935, 2, 276);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES (972, 2, 275);






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