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The order in column 1, if column1 is not NULL, otherwise the order in column2

Is there a way to combine ORDER BY and IS NULL in sql so that I can sort by column, if the column is not null, and if it is null, sort by another column?

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sql sql-order-by postgresql
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4 answers

Something like:

 ORDER BY CASE WHEN Column1 IS NOT NULL THEN Column1 ELSE Column2 END

Same as spelling:

 ORDER BY COALESCE(Column1, Column2)

Both should work in any sane DBMS.

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try it

  ORDER BY COALESCE(fieldA, fieldB);
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You can try the following:

 ORDER BY ISNULL(firstField, secondField)
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I don't have atm tables where I could test it, but this might work, at least without using data:

 SELECT * FROM table1 LEFT JOIN table2 ON table1.id = table2.id WHERE 1 ORDER BY IF( table2.id, table1.id, table1.name )

Also I don’t know what the order will look like if table2.id is sometimes null, it seems very unstable.

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