how to use a column value in a select statement itself in postgresql?

Question

let's say i hae a table schema named person it has these columns listed below

id  |  name  | age  | gender | activities_in_order | created_date

the value for activities_in_order column is a boolean...true or false..

how to use this column as reference in a select statement itself ?

here's my pseudo code

SELECT * FROM Person   ( if activities_in_order = true ORDER by field_here else if activities_in_order = false Order By field_here )

This doesn't really make sense. The ORDER BY is applied to all rows from the result. The value of the column might change for every row. Please edit your question (by clicking on the edit link below it) and add some sample data and the expected output based on that data as formatted text. See here for some tips on how to create nice looking text tables. (edit your question - do not post code or additional information in comments) — user330315
– user330315, Commented Jul 30, 2020 at 8:39

Mike Organek · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-30 11:20:03Z

2

Try this:

select * from "Person"
order by
  case when activities_in_order then field_here else field_there end;

Maybe your data design can be improved though.

Mike Organek

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answered Jul 30, 2020 at 9:35

Stefanov.sm

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1 Comment

This is right. The only problem will be if field_here and field_there are different datatypes.