⟩ Can You Use ORDER BY When Defining a View?
Sometimes you want the data in a view to be sorted and try to use the ORDER BY clause in the SELECT statement to define the view.
But SQL Server will not allow you to use ORDER BY to define a view without the TOP clause. The tutorial exercise below shows you what error you will get when using ORDER BY in a CREATE VIEW statement:
USE GlobalGuideLineDatabase;
GO
CREATE VIEW ggl_links_top AS
SELECT id, counts, url FROM ggl_links
WHERE counts > 100
ORDER BY counts DESC;
GO
Msg 1033, Level 15, State 1, Procedure ggl_links_top, Line 4
The ORDER BY clause is invalid in views, inline functions,
derived tables, subqueries, and common table expressions,
unless TOP or FOR XML is also specified.
CREATE VIEW ggl_links_top AS
SELECT TOP 100 id, counts, url FROM ggl_links
WHERE counts > 100
ORDER BY counts DESC;
GO
SELECT TOP 3 * FROM ggl_links_top;
GO
id counts url------ ------- -------------------------------------------
36470 999966 dgqnvmy onfb
12292 999953 qebmw v qkxqns jnb
6192 999943 p o qik od
The view seems to be sorted correctly.
