MySQL Order By not using ASC or DESC

Question

I have a column using IDs that I want to sort by. It has ID values from 1 to 3. However, instead of just using ASC of DESC, I want to do a custom sort by 2, 3, 1. How do I make this happen?

Answer 1

You could add a virtual column with values would be

MOD(ID, 3)

and order your query ascending by it. For example:

SELECT somecolumn, MOD(ID, 3) AS ordered_id FROM my_table ORDER BY ordered_id

Answer 2

Untested:

SELECT ..., IF(ID=2, 1, IF(ID=3, 2, 3)) AS orderByValue
  FROM ...
 ORDER BY orderByValue

It uses the IF function to convert ID values:

 ID     orderByValue
  2        1
  3        2
else       3

Answer 3

I think the easiest way is to do it like this:

SELECT * FROM `mytable` ORDER BY FIND_IN_SET(id, '2,3,1')