November 4, 2004 at 12:46 pm
Hi,
I want to retrieve rows from a database table in the order in which they were inserted into the database. By default, BCP is sorting in alphabetical order. Any ideas on how I can do this without SQL voodoo or identify fields?
November 5, 2004 at 2:18 pm
Not sure if I understand correct, but why don't you use a query with an ORDER BY according to your columns?
--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]
November 5, 2004 at 5:34 pm
It's like this. When you open up SQL Server and view all rows, it returns the results in what looks like the order in which they hit the database, by default. I was told that unlike Oracle, SQL Server doesn't keep any hidden identifiers. I was just curious about how SQL Server does its default sorting, really. =)
November 6, 2004 at 1:48 pm
When the table is a heap, I think the order is quite random. When the table has a clustered index, I believe this to be in order of the clustered index. Anyway, you shouldn't rely only on this. That's why I meant, use an ORDER BY, as this is the only reliable way to get the sorted result you expect.
--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]
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