Dynamic Sort By in SQL Server

Sort by column is sent as an input to the stored procedure and the sort by field can be different during different web service calls.

Sorting based on different fields at runtime does not need you to generate SQL statements with sort field appended and then execute them dynamically. It can be done as follows:

use mydb
go


set ansi_nulls on
go
set quoted_identifier off
go


create procedure dbo.get_account_info
(@sort_by_column varchar(255))
as
begin

set nocount on

select account_id, name_id, address_id, start_date, end_date, first_name, middle_name, last_name
from dbo.accounts
where status = 'A'

order by
(case @sort_by_column
when 'last_name' then m.last_name
when 'first_name' then first_name
when 'account_id' then account_id
when 'end_date' then end_date
when 'start_date' then start_date
else account_id
end)

end

Hope this helps.