hi ,
i have been searching on the internet for someone explains " Order by Decode " and i still do not understand how it works .
could you please explain all it's cases for me ?
E.G :
-
SELECT d.dname department,
e.ename
employee,
e.sal
salary
FROM emp e, dept d
WHERE d.deptno = e.deptno
ORDER BY DECODE(&&Order_Option,
'E',
e.name,
'D',
d.dname,
d.dname
this is the only case i can understand ,
- if &&order_option = 'E' , it will order by e.name , elsif = 'D' , then order by d.dname , .......etc .
but i see Order by decode ( column , 'e' , number , 'd' , number , number ) -- somthing like 1 or 001
or
Order by decode ( column , 'e' , 'character', 'd' , 'character', 'character') -- somthing like '001' or 'AAA'
what should this mean ?
please explain it to me , and mention cases i do not know about .
thank you