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Ordering by field index
Applies to ✅ Open Source Edition ✅ Express Edition ✅ Professional Edition ✅ Enterprise Edition
The SQL standard allows for specifying integer literals (literals, not bind values!) to reference column indexes from the projection (SELECT clause). This may be useful if you do not want to repeat a lengthy expression, by which you want to order - although most databases also allow for referencing aliased column references in the ORDER BY clause.
An example of this is given here:
SELECT AUTHOR_ID, TITLE FROM BOOK ORDER BY 1 ASC, 2 DESC
create.select(BOOK.AUTHOR_ID, BOOK.TITLE)
.from(BOOK)
.orderBy(inline(1).asc(), inline(2).desc())
.fetch();
This practice is generally discouraged as field indexes may shift in theSELECTclause, and developers might forget to update the indexes inORDER BY. It is mainly useful for quick-and-dirty ad-hoc SQL. See also the don't do this section about this topic.
Dialect support
This example using jOOQ:
select(BOOK.ID).from(BOOK).orderBy(1)
Translates to the following dialect specific expressions:
All dialects
SELECT BOOK.ID FROM BOOK ORDER BY 1
Generated with jOOQ 3.20. Translate your own SQL on our website
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