Conditional SQL ORDER BY ASC/DESC for alpha columns

Question

Writing a stored procedure in MS SQL Server 2008 R2, I want to avoid using DSQL...

I would like the sort method (ASC or DESC) to be conditional.

Now, with a

Answer 1

One option

;WITH cQuery AS
(
   SELECT
       *,
       ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY SortColumn) AS RowNum
   FROM
       MyTable
)
SELECT
   *
FROM
   cQuery
ORDER BY
   RowNum * @Direction --1 = ASC or -1 = DESC

Or CASE which IMHO is a bit uglier

ORDER BY
  CASE WHEN 'ASC' THEN SortColumn ELSE '' END ASC,
  CASE WHEN 'DESC' THEN SortColumn ELSE '' END DESC