select query for a single table_ORDER BY

[vindhvp]

Hi,
I am having a table with two columns as follows.
Name Desc
------ ----------

USA United States Of America
IND Republic of India
USSR Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics
Canada
AFG Afghanisthan


My requirement is that ,I am having the following select query.
Select Desc,Name from tablename ORDER BY Desc.
I want to show only the Desc data in the UI.
But in case if the Desc is null,I will show the "Name" in the UI.
So in the above table,for Canada,since Desc is null,I will show the "Name".
But the problem I am facing is that the above select query returns an ordered set of data with the value "Canada" at the top.
I want a sorted data sorted by Desc values,but in case Desc is nul,I want Name value to be taken instead .
When sorted i want the values as follows.


Afghanisthan
Canada
Republic of India
Union Of Soviet Socialist Republic
United States Of America


Can anybody help?


thanks

[pclement]

What type of database are you working with?

[vindhvp]

Hi,
I am using MSSQL Server

thanks

[pclement]

How about the following:

ISNULL(Desc, Name) AS 'Description' ORDER BY Description

[vindhvp]

Hi,

I am new to SQL.Could you please give me the entire query?

Thanks
Vinod

[vindhvp]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the support.
I got an idea from another site.
I used the following query and it is working.
SELECT Name,Descr FROM tablename ORDER BY (CASE WHEN Descr = '' THEN Name ELSE Descr END)

thanks
Vinod

[jsanchezc]

Hello,
You can do this:
Select [Desc],Name from tablename ORDER BY Desc.

Notice, you can put between brackets all fieldname, usually we do not do that
but when field's name is not allowed by SQL (because is the same as some syntax word... or has not allowed characters...) we must put the name between brackets.

It works also in SQL and MsAccess

Exaple: we have a field called: Start Date
Name has a space, so SQL des not know if it is 1 field or 2 fields without separator so:
select Start Date from Table
will raise an error

But:
select [Start Date] from Table
will work

Hope this help,
José Sánchez Carvajal

[pclement]

Hi,

I am new to SQL.Could you please give me the entire query?

Thanks
Vinod

SELECT Name, ISNULL(Descr, Name) As 'Descr' FROM tablename ORDER BY Descr