ORDER BY, set a specific case to the first index? - sql

Question

Using SQL Server 2008...
I'm having some troubles in trying to order my rows in a specific order that I would like them to be ordered by. I've found a few examples that use the ORDER BY CASE clause, but am unsure whether using this method will produce the result that I want it to, thus I come to the community!
Here's what I have:
First, I select, if it exists, a distinct year that is equal to the current year:
IF EXISTS(SELECT DISTINCT [Year]
FROM Assessment WHERE ProjectCode = #ProjectCode AND [Year] = DATENAME(YEAR, GETDATE()))
SELECT DISTINCT [Year]
FROM Assessment WHERE ProjectCode = #ProjectCode
But, then I find some confusion in ordering the results. I'd like to set the current year to the first row returned using the ORDER BY clause, then order the rest of the returned years in a descending order, here's what I have so far:
ORDER BY (CASE WHEN [Year] = (DATENAME(YEAR, GETDATE())) THEN 1
ELSE 100 END) ASC, [Year] desc
Next, if the current year is not contained in the query, select each year and order by year descending.
ELSE
SELECT DISTINCT [Year]
FROM Assessment WHERE ProjectCode = #ProjectCode
ORDER BY [Year] desc
Thanks, in advance!

Answer 1

You don't need conditional statements here at all:
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT DISTINCT [Year]
FROM Assessment
WHERE projectCode = #projectCode
) q
ORDER BY
CASE [Year] WHEN YEAR(GETDATE()) THEN 1 ELSE 2 END,
[Year]
will output the current year (if exists) first, the other later.

Answer 2

You're question isn't very clear because you don't specify what is broken or where you're having issues. From what I gather, however, you don't need an IF/ELSE. Instead you could do something like ...
SELECT DISTINCT [Year],
CASE [Year]
WHEN DATENAME(Year, GETDATE()) THEN 9999
ELSE [Year] END AS GarbageSoDistinctWorks
FROM Assessment
WHERE ProjectCode = #ProjectCode
ORDER BY
CASE [Year]
WHEN DATENAME(Year, GETDATE()) THEN 9999
ELSE [Year] END DESC
FYI ... i added the case to the select list as a throw away column to avoid the error I assume you're getting.. There are other ways, like a derived table, but for now this should work..
Msg 145, Level 15, State 1, Line 2
ORDER BY items must appear in the select list if SELECT DISTINCT is specified.
HTH,
-eric

Answer 3

Your example code appears to do what you describe. What problems are you having?
As a side note: You don't need the IF statement. By using the ORDER BY from your first example (with the CASE statement), you will get the correct results for both scenarios.
- If "this year" is in your data, it comes first. Everything else comes next in DESC order
- If "this year" isn't in your data, you just get everything else in DESC order