Max,

> I'd rather only have one SP that does everything I want it to do.
>
> In any case, IN_ORDER_BY is a varchar(32) variable and not the actual

column names/aliases.

>
> Is it not possible to:
>
> SELECT * FROM GET_DATA(IN_ USER_ID) ORDER BY IN_ORDER_BY
>
> ie order outside the SP?

Yes, this is possible, but will be much slower.

In you put the ORDER BY and/or WHERE clause inside the procedure,
it becomes part of the query plan the optimizer can create to get the data.

If you put it outside the procedure, Firebird has to first get all rows from
your procedure and then apply the ORDER BY and/or WHERE clauses,
because a procedure is a "black box" that spits out data rows. The
optimizer cannot adjust the plan to get the data if you do it this way.

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - development tool for Firebird and more!
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
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