Many thanks Dan

Rgds Yobbo


[quoted text, click to view]
In SQL, you *must* specify ORDER BY to return data in a particular sequence.
Consider results to be unordered unless you explicitly specify ORDER BY in
the outermost query. Even if a query returned results in your desired order
without ORDER BY, it would be due to chance rather than designed behavior.

Below is one method to accomplish your task.

SELECT STRINGTEXT, TOKENID
FROM WEBSTRINGS
JOIN (
SELECT 6 AS TOKENID, 1 AS SEQ
UNION ALL SELECT 20, 2
UNION ALL SELECT 234, 3
UNION ALL SELECT 19, 4
UNION ALL SELECT 32, 5
UNION ALL SELECT 4, 6
UNION ALL SELECT 800, 7
UNION ALL SELECT 177, 8) AS SELECT_SEQUENCE ON
SELECT_SEQUENCE.TOKENID = WEBSTRINGS.TOKENID
ORDER BY SELECT_SEQUENCE.SEQ


--
Hope this helps.

Dan Guzman
SQL Server MVP

[quoted text, click to view]

Yobbo (info@SpamMeNot.co.uk) writes:
[quoted text, click to view]

Actually, SQL Server does not sort at all. It just retrieves the rows
in the order which happens to be most efficient.

As an alterantive to Dan's suggestion, this may or may not fit better
to your actual problem:

SELECT STRINGTEXT, TOKENID
FROM WEBSTRINGS
WHERE TOKENID IN (6,20,234,19,32,4,800,177)
ORDER BY CASE TOKENID
WHEN 6 THEN 1
WHEN 20 THEN 2
WHEN 234 THEN 3
-- etc
END



--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at