How to Prioritize Specific Items in MySQL Ordered Lists?

Prioritizing Items in MySQL Ordered Lists: A SQL Solution

Challenge:

You have a MySQL table containing a list of items, and you need to display this list with a specific item consistently appearing at the top, irrespective of the original order.

Approach:

MySQL's ORDER BY clause provides the solution. This clause allows you to sort your results based on specific conditions. Let's illustrate with an example:

Suppose you have a friends table with id and name columns. To prioritize the item with id = 5, you can use the following query:

SELECT id, name
FROM friends
ORDER BY id = 5 DESC;

This query works by first evaluating id = 5. Rows where this condition is true (i.e., id is 5) will receive a value of 1 (TRUE). All other rows will receive a value of 0 (FALSE). The DESC modifier then sorts these results in descending order, placing the row with id = 5 (value 1) at the top.

For a more refined ordering of the remaining items, use this query:

SELECT id, name
FROM friends
ORDER BY id = 5 DESC, id ASC;

This prioritizes id = 5 as before. Then, it sorts the remaining items (id != 5) in ascending order based on their id values.

This technique provides a simple and efficient way to manage prioritized lists within your MySQL database.

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