SORT_COLLATION Option

Allowed Values

Internal, collation_name, or collation_id

Default

Internal

Scope

DBA permissions are not required to set this option. Can be set temporary for an individual connection or for the PUBLIC group. Takes effect immediately.

Description

When the value of SORT_COLLATION is Internal, the ORDER BY clause remains unchanged.

When the value of this option is set to a valid collation name or collation ID, any string expression in the ORDER BY clause is treated as if the SORTKEY function has been invoked.

Functions are described in Reference: Building Blocks, Tables, and Procedures.

Example

Set the sort collation to binary:

SET TEMPORARY OPTION sort_collation='binary';

Setting the sort collation to binary transforms these queries:

SELECT Name, ID
FROM Products
ORDER BY Name, ID;
SELECT Name, ID
FROM Products
ORDER BY 1, 2;

The queries are transformed into:

SELECT Name, ID
FROM Products
ORDER BY SORTKEY(Name, 'binary'), ID;