Ordering by the order of values in a SQL IN() clause

Question

I am wondering if there is away (possibly a better way) to order by the order of the values in an IN() clause.

The problem is that I have 2 queries, one that gets al

Answer 1

Use MySQL's FIELD() function:

SELECT name, description, ...
FROM ...
WHERE id IN([ids, any order])
ORDER BY FIELD(id, [ids in order])

FIELD() will return the index of the first parameter that is equal to the first parameter (other than the first parameter itself).

FIELD('a', 'a', 'b', 'c')

will return 1

FIELD('a', 'c', 'b', 'a')

will return 3

This will do exactly what you want if you paste the ids into the IN() clause and the FIELD() function in the same order.