How to Order By within an Order By in SQL? - sql

Question

I'm trying to create a SQL statement which will recreate the hierarchical container/folder/test structure in SilkCentral Test Manager.
Test containers have no ParentID
Test folders contain a ParentID and IsLeaf = 0
Tests contain a ParentID and IsLeaf = 1
This Query results in all of the test containers, folders, and tests:
SELECT "NodeID", "ParentID", "Name", "IsLeaf", "OrderNumber"
FROM "Silk"."TM_TestPlanNodes" AS TPN
WHERE PROJECTID = 36
ORDER BY "ParentID", "OrderNumber", "IsLeaf"
Here are some of the Results:
NodeID ParentID Name IsLeaf OrderNumber
65408 Installation and Upgrades 0 0
65445 Connectivity 0 1
65448 Focus 0 2
65409 GINA / PLAP 0 3
65446 Graphical User Interface 0 4
71038 Login Properties 0 5
65449 Miscellaneous 0 6
70636 Net Firewall 0 7
70998 Software Updates 0 8
65447 Third-party Services 0 9
70805 SilkTest Automated Tests 0 10
68812 65408 0. Setup 0 0
65454 65408 1. Installations & Upgrades 0 1
65450 65408 Typical/Custom Installation 0 2
I would like this ordering instead:
The ParentID is sorted, but if there exists a Node with the ParentID=thePreviousNode'sID, then that is chosen next. If there are multiple of those nodes, they should be ordered by IsLeaf and then, OrderNumber.
How to accomplish this? I'm very limited in what I can do, because I think very complicated syntax will end up throwing errors in Silk. I was going to try a nested SELECT statement:
SELECT "NodeID", "ParentID", "Name","IsLeaf"
FROM "Silk"."TM_TestPlanNodes"
WHERE PROJECTID = '36'AND ParentID LIKE (
SELECT ParentID
FROM "Silk"."TM_TestPlanNodes"
WHERE NAME = 'Installation and Upgrades')
But this is getting this error: "Could not execute report query: Subquery returned more than 1 value. This is not permitted when the subquery follows =, !=, <, <= , >, >= or when the subquery is used as an expression."
This is why I'm fiddling with Order By.

Answer 1

You can use a recursive cte to create a hidden column and orderby that column. The hidden column should be Something like:
WITH cte (NodeID, ParentID, Name, IsLeaf, [Order])
AS
(
SELECT NodeID, ParentID, Name, IsLeaf, cast(NodeID as nvarchar(10))
FROM "Silk"."TM_TestPlanNodes"
WHERE PROJECTID = '36'
UNION ALL
SELECT "NodeID", "ParentID", "Name","IsLeaf", cast(leftNode.ParentID as nvarchar(10)) + cast(leftNode.NodeID as nvarchar(10))
FROM "Silk"."TM_TestPlanNodes" as leftNode
INNER JOIN cte on cte.NodeID = leftNode.ParentID
WHERE leftNode.ParentID = cte.NodeID
)
select "NodeID", "ParentID", "Name","IsLeaf" from cte
order by cast([Order] as nvarchar(50))
This was written in notepad so is possible to have some errors, but the idea is to make an [order] column that for example for 65530 would be 654086554569530 (the parent_parent, the parent and the node)
EDIT:
this only works if the ids are all 5 characters long, but from here you can make the proper tweaks.

Answer 2

Although it might not be a PERFECT fit, it is very close with a nested hierarchical representation of parent-child records in a self-joined list and incorporated proper ordering concerns. You may have to tweak it a bit for your table, but here's a link to a prior solution
To clarify that problem with the menu and the corresponding data.
id | parentid | name
1 | 0 | CatOne
2 | 0 | CatTwo
3 | 0 | CatThree
4 | 1 | SubCatOne
5 | 1 | SubCatOne2
6 | 3 | SubCatThree
Desired output
CatOne 1
--SubCatOne 4
--SubCatOne2 5
CatTwo 2
CatThree 3
--SubCatThree 6
The FIRST case is pre-grouping all the like ID's based on the parent... So, when the parent ID is 0, it IS the top-most level, so we keep it's ID. Then, any children under it, we want their respective PARENT IDs so all of the same are correctly pre-grouped.
The purpose of the SECOND group by is to force the entry that represents the actual TOP LEVEL menu item to the top of the list regardless of the child entries.
Say you have a table where IDs are already established, and you now add a new item into position ID = 7 for "New Top Level" and want to move ID #s 2 and 3 into the new "top-level section. If you just to the query with the first CASE, your records would be simulated returned as
ID Parent Name (natural order from the table)
2 7 CatTwo
3 7 CatThree
7 0 New Category. (we want THIS one in FIRST POSITION of the group)
As you can see, this would be a bad representation of the sub-grouping order. The top-level item actually is in the 3rd position... To bring it to the front, we are now sub-grouping and saying... if the Parent ID of the record = 0, then sort it as if it were a '1' priority. Anything else is considered a '2' priority and would simulate the result like
ID Parent Name SubPrioritySort
7 0 New Category. 1
2 7 CatTwo 2
3 7 CatThree 2
Since you are not actually returning these "CASE" values in your result query, you wouldn't otherwise visually see it... but for grins, add them as columns to your query to see the impact. Hopefully this clarified the answer for you.
In your question, you would obviously be able to add your sort order column to the basis of this query.