IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Programming IBM BPM > Developing client applications for BPEL processes and tasks > Queries on BPEL process and task data > Business Process Choreographer EJB query API > Syntax of the API query method
Order-by clause
The order-by clause in the query function specifies the sort criteria for the query result set.
You can specify a list of columns from the views by which the result is sorted. These columns must be fully qualified by the name of the view and the column.
The order-by clause syntax is similar to the syntax of an SQL order-by clause; use commas to separate each part of the clause. You can also specify ASC to sort the columns in ascending order, and DESC to sort the columns in descending order. If you do not want to sort the query result set, you must specify null for the order-by clause.
Sort criteria are applied on the server, that is, the locale of the server is used for sorting. If you specify more than one column, the query result set is ordered by the values of the first column, then by the values of the second column, and so on. You cannot specify the columns in the order-by clause by position as you can with an SQL query.
Examples of order-by clauses
- "PROCESS_TEMPLATE.NAME"
Sorts the query result alphabetically by the process-template name.
- "PROCESS_INSTANCE.CREATED, PROCESS_INSTANCE.NAME DESC"
Sorts the query result by the creation date and, for a specific date, sorts the results alphabetically by the process-instance name in reverse order.
- "ACTIVITY.OWNER, ACTIVITY.TEMPLATE_NAME, ACTIVITY.STATE"
Sorts the query result by the activity owner, then the activity-template name, and then the state of the activity.