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SQL Server FAQ - Using Group Functions in the ORDER BY Clause

By: FYIcenter.com

(Continued from previous topic...)

Can Group Functions Be Used in the ORDER BY Clause?

If the query output is aggregated as groups, you can sort the groups by using group functions in the ORDER BY clause. The following statement returns the maximum "counts" in each group, determined by a unique combination of tag and year. The group output is sorted by the maximum "counts" in each group in ascending order:

SELECT tag, YEAR(created), MAX(counts) 
   FROM fyi_links GROUP BY tag, YEAR(created)
   ORDER BY MAX(counts)
GO
tag     year(created)   max(counts)
DEV     2006            120
DBA     2006            390
DEV     2004            439
SQA     2007            728
SQA     2003            828
DBA     2005            960
DBA     2007            972

1. What Is a SELECT Query Statement?
2. How To Create a Testing Table with Test Data?
3. How To Select All Columns of All Rows from a Table with a SELECT statement?
4. How To Select Some Specific Columns from a Table in a Query?
5. How To Select Some Specific Rows from a Table?
6. How To Add More Data to the Testing Table?
7. How To Sort the Query Output with ORDER BY Clauses?
8. Can the Query Output Be Sorted by Multiple Columns?
9. How To Sort Query Output in Descending Order?
10. How To Count Rows with the COUNT(*) Function?
11. Can SELECT Statements Be Used on Views?
12. How To Filter Out Duplications in the Returning Rows?
13. What Are Group Functions in Query Statements?
14. How To Use Group Functions in the SELECT Clause?
15. Can Group Functions Be Mixed with Non-group Selection Fields?
16. How To Divide Query Output into Multiple Groups with the GROUP BY Clause?
17. How To Apply Filtering Criteria at Group Level with The HAVING Clause?
18. How To Count Duplicated Values in a Column?
19. Can Multiple Columns Be Used in GROUP BY?
20. Can Group Functions Be Used in the ORDER BY Clause?