Keep order from 'IN' clause

Question

Is it possible to keep order from a \'IN\' conditional clause?

I found this question on SO but in his example the OP have already a sorted \'IN\' clause.

My

Answer 1

Decode function comes handy in this case instead of case expressions:

SELECT SomeField,OtherField
FROM TestResult 
WHERE TestResult.SomeField IN (45,2,445,12,789)
ORDER BY DECODE(SomeField, 45,1, 2,2, 445,3, 12,4, 789,5)

Note that value,position pairs (e.g. 445,3) are kept together for readability reasons.