MySQL : Conditional ORDER BY to only one column

Hello and thanks for taking time to read this question.

I am using MySQL, and I want to sort results using ORDER BY to one specific column, but the results must be ordered according an specific criteria to this column. For example, to the following table, I want to ORDER BY 'group', showing first the 9,7,6 'group' items and, in the end 10,8,5 'group' items:

names     group
--------- ------
susanita  10
miguelito 5
mafalda   7
manolito  8
libertad  6
felipe    9
guille    8

thanks in advance.

Use MySQL's find_in_set() function to do this. It is more concise but less portable than the CASE approach gbn proposed.

For example:

SELECT `names`, `group`
FROM my_table
WHERE `group` IN (9,7,6,10,8,5)
ORDER BY find_in_set(`group`,'9,7,6,10,8,5');

Because it relies on string searching, find_in_set() is useful mainly for ordering on small sets of easily searchable keys, like integers.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#5422, answer score: 5