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.

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