Bob Ramsey wrote:
Ah, but the ordering is not random. As your example has it, the results are in the order that the entries were inserted into the table. There is an explanation for the order of the returned data.<snip>
Apparently not random, but not in the order inserted either. Consider:
create temporary table foo (num int(10)); insert into foo values (1), (2), (3), (4), (5); select * from foo; delete from foo where num = 3; insert into foo values (6); insert into foo values (3);
mysql> select * from foo; +------+ | num | +------+ | 1 | | 2 | | 6 | | 4 | | 5 | | 3 | +------+ 6 rows in set (0.01 sec)
(Same example as before with the "delete...where num=6" removed.) Note the 6 is where the 3 was originally, because the slot where the first 3 was inserted/deleted was reused for the 6.
This trivial example yields results which are ordered neither by num nor by the order inserted. The lesson is clear: The *only* way to be sure your rows are sorted in a particular way is to explicitly request it with an ORDER BY clause, as several others have pointed out. This is really a fundamental principle: It is the data in the row that matters, not how or where it is stored.
Michael
-- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
