MySQL - ORDER BY values within IN()

Question

I\'m hoping to sort the items returned in the following query by the order they\'re entered into the IN() function.

INPUT:

SELECT id         


        

Answer 1

SELECT id, name
FROM mytable
WHERE name IN ('B', 'A', 'D', 'E', 'C')
ORDER BY FIELD(name, 'B', 'A', 'D', 'E', 'C')

The FIELD function returns the position of the first string in the remaining list of strings.

However, it is much better performance-wise to have an indexed column that represents your sort order, and then sort by this column.