How Can I Prioritize Custom Sorting Orders in MySQL?

Customizing Sorting Priority in MySQL

In MySQL, defining a custom sorting order allows you to prioritize specific criteria when retrieving data. One such task involves sorting a table with multiple values in a column.

Consider the following table:

ID  Language    Text
0   ENU         a
0   JPN         b
0   DAN         c       
1   ENU         d
1   JPN         e
1   DAN         f
2   etc...

To retrieve data sorted by language and ascending ID, with ENU being the first priority, JPN the second, and DAN the third, you can utilize MySQL's FIELD() function. This function assigns a position to each language value based on the provided order.

Here's the query to achieve this:

SELECT *
FROM table_name
ORDER BY FIELD(Language, 'ENU', 'JPN', 'DAN'), ID;

This will return the data in the following order: a, d, b, e, c, f. However, it's important to note that:

• Using FIELD() may impact portability, as other DBMSs might not support this function.
• For extended lists of values, it's preferable to create a separate table with a "sortOrder" column. By joining this table to the main table, you can achieve custom sorting without the limitations of FIELD().

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