Re: select issue with order v8.1

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 9:42 AM, Terry <td3201(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 10:30 PM, Scott Marlowe <scott(dot)marlowe(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 8:50 PM, Terry <td3201(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I have an application that is doing something stupid in that it is
>>> tacking on its own order clause at the end of the statement I am
>>> providing.
>>>
>>> For example, I am putting this statement in:
>>> select ev_id,type,ev_time,category,error,ev_text,userid,ex_long,client_ex_long,ex_text
>>> from clients_event_log limit 100
>>>
>>> It is tacking on ORDER BY ev_id.  The problem is that isn't per the
>>> syntax.  Can anyone think of anything clever to get around this stupid
>>> application doing what it is doing?  For example, anything I can do
>>> beside limit?
>>>
>>> I appreciate the thoughts!
>>
>> You could either wrap it in a subselect or make a view.
>>
>> select * from (select
>> ev_id,type,ev_time,category,error,ev_text,userid,ex_long,client_ex_long,ex_text
>> from clients_event_log limit 100) as a
>>
>> and an order by tacked on the end of that is ok.
>>
>
> This and the previous poster's advice both worked.  Thank you.
> However, I am having another issue where the application is not
> viewing a 'serial' data type as a number.  Clearly none of this is a
> postgres issue.  Stupid programming.
>

Based on my above comment. Is there a way to create a view or
something that presents the serial column as an integer? In the end,
that's what it is but on the insert side it is incrementing the number
for the underlying app. I'm not a SQL guy but that's my understanding
anyways. I could even perhaps do a table copy process and simply make
the destination type an integer rather than a serial? Just thinking
out loud. Anyone have an idea here?