Keep order from 'IN' clause - sql

Question

Is it possible to keep order from a 'IN' conditional clause?
I found this question on SO but in his example the OP have already a sorted 'IN' clause.
My case is different, 'IN' clause is in random order
Something like this :
SELECT SomeField,OtherField
FROM TestResult
WHERE TestResult.SomeField IN (45,2,445,12,789)
I would like to retrieve results in (45,2,445,12,789) order. I'm using an Oracle database. Maybe there is an attribute in SQL I can use with the conditional clause to specify to keep order of the clause.

Answer 1

There will be no reliable ordering unless you use an ORDER BY clause ..
SELECT SomeField,OtherField
FROM TestResult
WHERE TestResult.SomeField IN (45,2,445,12,789)
order by case TestResult.SomeField
when 45 then 1
when 2 then 2
when 445 then 3
...
end
You could split the query into 5 queries union all'd together though ...
SELECT SomeField,OtherField
FROM TestResult
WHERE TestResult.SomeField = 4
union all
SELECT SomeField,OtherField
FROM TestResult
WHERE TestResult.SomeField = 2
union all
...
I'd trust the former method more, and it would probably perform much better.

Answer 2

Decode function comes handy in this case instead of case expressions:
SELECT SomeField,OtherField
FROM TestResult
WHERE TestResult.SomeField IN (45,2,445,12,789)
ORDER BY DECODE(SomeField, 45,1, 2,2, 445,3, 12,4, 789,5)
Note that value,position pairs (e.g. 445,3) are kept together for readability reasons.

Answer 3

Try this:
SELECT T.SomeField,T.OtherField
FROM TestResult T
JOIN
(
SELECT 1 as Id, 45 as Val FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 2, 2 FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 3, 445 FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 4, 12 FROM dual UNION ALL
SELECT 5, 789 FROM dual
) I
ON T.SomeField = I.Val
ORDER BY I.Id

Answer 4

There is an alternative that uses string functions:
with const as (select ',45,2,445,12,789,' as vals)
select tr.*
from TestResult tr cross join const
where instr(const.vals, ','||cast(tr.somefield as varchar(255))||',') > 0
order by instr(const.vals, ','||cast(tr.somefield as varchar(255))||',')
I offer this because you might find it easier to maintain a string of values rather than an intermediate table.

Answer 5

I was able to do this in my application using (using SQL Server 2016)
select ItemID, iName
from Items
where ItemID in (13,11,12,1)
order by CHARINDEX(' ' + Convert("varchar",ItemID) + ' ',' 13 , 11 , 12 , 1 ')
I used a code-side regex to replace \b (word boundary) with a space. Something like...
var mylist = "13,11,12,1";
var spacedlist = replace(mylist,/\b/," ");
Importantly, because I can in my scenario, I cache the result until the next time the related items are updated, so that the query is only run at item creation/modification, rather than with each item viewing, helping to minimize any performance hit.

Answer 6

Pass the values in via a collection (SYS.ODCINUMBERLIST is an example of a built-in collection) and then order the rows by the collection's order:
SELECT t.SomeField,
t.OtherField
FROM TestResult t
INNER JOIN (
SELECT ROWNUM AS rn,
COLUMN_VALUE AS value
FROM TABLE(SYS.ODCINUMBERLIST(45,2,445,12,789))
) i
ON t.somefield = i.value
ORDER BY rn
Then, for the sample data:
CREATE TABLE TestResult ( somefield, otherfield ) AS
SELECT 2, 'A' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT 5, 'B' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT 12, 'C' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT 37, 'D' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT 45, 'E' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT 100, 'F' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT 445, 'G' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT 789, 'H' FROM DUAL UNION ALL
SELECT 999, 'I' FROM DUAL;
The output is:
SOMEFIELD
OTHERFIELD
45
E
2
A
445
G
12
C
789
H
fiddle