Sort words from different columns...

pearl2 · #1 (**permalink**) 02-07-04, 07:25

Hi,

Let's you've a database of words as follows:

Code:

column1    column2    column3
cheer        town          greed
occupy      serene       addicted
provide     astute        recoup

The words are fed into the database in no particular order. Is there a way to select all the words from the 3 columns and sort them aphabatically with a mysql query? In order words, the output of the select should be:

addicted
astute
cheer
greed
occupy
provide
recoup
serene
town

(I'm using 4.0.16 so subset is not an option.)

Hope someone can enlighten me

TIA

vanekl · #2 (**permalink**) 02-07-04, 08:40

select column1 from yourtable
union
select column2 from yourtable
union
select column3 from yourtable
order by 1;

pearl2 · #3 (**permalink**) 02-09-04, 03:06

Quote:

Originally posted by vanekl
select column1 from yourtable
union
select column2 from yourtable
union
select column3 from yourtable
order by 1;

Thanks for the solution, vanekl!

It works wonderfully. I wasn't sure if UNION was supported in 4.0.16 when I was trying it but I got the results as expectedl. So it's supported.

Btw, what does ORDER BY 1 do?

cheers

khibinite · #4 (**permalink**) 02-09-04, 04:47

Quote:

Originally posted by pearl2
Thanks for the solution, vanekl!

It works wonderfully. I wasn't sure if UNION was supported in 4.0.16 when I was trying it but I got the results as expectedl. So it's supported.

Btw, what does ORDER BY 1 do?

cheers

Hi!

This set an order by first (1) column in your query colulmns list.