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Ordering and NULLS

Applies to ✅ Open Source Edition   ✅ Express Edition   ✅ Professional Edition   ✅ Enterprise Edition

A few databases support the SQL standard "null ordering" clause in sort specification lists, to define whether NULL values should come first or last in an ordered result.

SELECT
  AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME,
  AUTHOR.LAST_NAME
FROM AUTHOR
ORDER BY LAST_NAME ASC,
         FIRST_NAME ASC NULLS LAST
 
create.select(
         AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME,
         AUTHOR.LAST_NAME)
      .from(AUTHOR)
      .orderBy(AUTHOR.LAST_NAME.asc(),
               AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME.asc().nullsLast())
      .fetch();

If your database doesn't support this syntax, jOOQ emulates it using a CASE expression

Dialect support

This example using jOOQ:

select(AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME).from(AUTHOR).orderBy(AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME.asc().nullsLast())

Translates to the following dialect specific expressions:

Access, SQLServer

SELECT AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME
FROM AUTHOR
ORDER BY iif(AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME IS NOT NULL, 0, 1), AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME ASC

ASE, Aurora MySQL, MemSQL, MySQL, SQLDataWarehouse, Sybase

SELECT AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME
FROM AUTHOR
ORDER BY CASE
  WHEN AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME IS NOT NULL THEN 0
  ELSE 1
END, AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME ASC

Aurora Postgres, BigQuery, ClickHouse, CockroachDB, Derby, DuckDB, Exasol, Firebird, H2, HSQLDB, Hana, Informix, Oracle, Postgres, SQLite, Snowflake, Teradata, Trino, YugabyteDB

SELECT AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME
FROM AUTHOR
ORDER BY AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME ASC NULLS LAST

DB2, MariaDB, Redshift, Vertica

SELECT AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME
FROM AUTHOR
ORDER BY nvl2(AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME, 0, 1), AUTHOR.FIRST_NAME ASC
Generated with jOOQ 3.20. Translate your own SQL on our website

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