On Wed, Feb 23, 2005 at 13:54:50 -0600, "Thomas F.O'Connell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > How would one know from the reference material that it is possible to > include IS NOT NULL in an ORDER BY clause? > > Similarly, other than the FAQ, I've never been able to tell from the > SELECT documentation why ORDER BY random() works.
>From the SELECT command documentation: SELECT [ ALL | DISTINCT [ ON ( expression [, ...] ) ] ] * | expression [ AS output_name ] [, ...] [ FROM from_item [, ...] ] [ WHERE condition ] [ GROUP BY expression [, ...] ] [ HAVING condition [, ...] ] [ { UNION | INTERSECT | EXCEPT } [ ALL ] select ] [ ORDER BY expression [ ASC | DESC | USING operator ] [, ...] ] [ LIMIT { count | ALL } ] [ OFFSET start ] [ FOR UPDATE [ OF table_name [, ...] ] ] Notice that for ORDER BY you can supply an expression. That should be a big clue why you can use IS NOT NULL and random() in an ORDER BY clause. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org