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Groups > comp.databases.ms-sqlserver > #1149

Re: Puzzling ORDER BY

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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Jeroen Mostert (jmostert@xs4all.nl) writes:
> Yes, you're right -- if you supply a constant expression explicitly, SQL
> Server will catch this and flag it as nonsensical. A bit overzealous, I 
> think. It's mostly harmless, compared to other things that aren't
> detected. 
>
> If you use "NULL + [column]", or any other expression that always yields
> NULL but isn't constant, the error goes away. The CASE, of course, is
> not a constant expression. 
 
Or you can say ORDER BY (SELECT NULL). Which is not very useful in the
main ORDER BY for a query, but this is useful with row_number() when you
don't care about the order. (ORDER BY is mandatory for row_number.)

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

Links for SQL Server Books Online:
SQL 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc514207.aspx
SQL 2005: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb895970.aspx

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Thread

Puzzling ORDER BY Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-06-21 09:37 -0700
  Re: Puzzling ORDER BY Jeroen Mostert <jmostert@xs4all.nl> - 2012-06-21 21:08 +0200
    Re: Puzzling ORDER BY Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-06-21 13:40 -0700
      Re: Puzzling ORDER BY Jeroen Mostert <jmostert@xs4all.nl> - 2012-06-22 08:24 +0200
        Re: Puzzling ORDER BY Erland Sommarskog <esquel@sommarskog.se> - 2012-06-22 11:31 +0200
    Re: Puzzling ORDER BY Erland Sommarskog <esquel@sommarskog.se> - 2012-06-21 23:31 +0200
      Re: Puzzling ORDER BY Jeroen Mostert <jmostert@xs4all.nl> - 2012-06-22 08:46 +0200
  Re: Puzzling ORDER BY rja.carnegie@gmail.com - 2012-07-02 03:36 -0700

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