Use the ORDER BY clause with an R:BASE command to specify the order in which rows of data from a table are displayed.
Options
,
Indicates that this part of the command is repeatable.
ASC
DESC
Specifies whether to sort a column in ascending or descending order.
#c
Takes the place of a column name and refers to the column numbers displayed with the LIST TABLE command.
colname
Sorts by any column name or combination of column names.
seq_no
Refers to the items listed in the SELECT command that is using the ORDER BY command, ordered from left to right. An item can be a column name, expression, or SELECT function.
About the ORDER BY Command
The syntax for the ORDER BY clause is the same for all commands. ORDER BY must refer to only one table or view.
You can significantly reduce the time R:BASE takes to process an ORDER BY clause when the column or columns listed in the ORDER BY clause are included in an index with the same column sort order as that specified in the ORDER BY clause.
Using the SET SORT Command
The ORDER BY command uses the R:BASE automatic sort optimizer. If you are sorting extremely large tables, and if your disk space is limited, the automatic sort optimizer might be unable to sort the data. Instead, use the SET SORT ON command because it uses the least disk space necessary to sort data; however, the SET SORT ON command is slower than the automatic sort.
Examples
The following command displays data from the custid, company, and custcity columns from the customertable.
SELECT custid, company, custcity FROM customer
The ORDER BY clause in the command below arranges the custidvalues in descending order.
SELECT custid, company, custcity FROM customer +
ORDER BY custid DESC
You can substitute a column's sequence number for a column named in the ORDER BY clause. You must use a sequence number when referring to an expression, function, constant, or when a UNION operator is used. The following command is equivalent to the command example above.
SELECT custid, company, custcity FROM customer +
ORDER BY 1 DESC
