How to define a custom ORDER BY order in mySQL

Question

In MySQL how do I define a custom sorting order.

To try to explain what I want consider this table:

ID  Language    Text
0   ENU         a
0   JPN           


        

Answer 1

If those are the only three values, then you can use a CASE expression:

ORDER BY `ID`,
         CASE `Language`
         WHEN 'ENU' THEN 1
         WHEN 'JPN' THEN 2
         WHEN 'DAN' THEN 3
         END

(If there could be other values, then you may want to add some extra logic to keep the ordering consistent; for example, you might add ELSE 4 to that CASE expression, and then order by Language itself as the third ordering criterion:

ORDER BY `ID`,
         CASE `Language`
         WHEN 'ENU' THEN 1
         WHEN 'JPN' THEN 2
         WHEN 'DAN' THEN 3
         ELSE 4
         END,
         `Language`

)