Just as an FYI, if you want to reassure yourself that the ORDER BY is being applied as intended, you could do the following: ( select 1 as hint, start_time as when [...] union all select 2 as hint, end_time as when [...] ) order by seq, when This is ANSI/ISO standard, and works in PostgreSQL (based on a quick test). >>> "Merlin Moncure" <merlin.moncure@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> >>> hmm, try pushing the union into a subquery...this is better style because it's kind of ambiguous if the ordering will apply before/after the union. select q.when from ( select 1 as hint, start_time as when [...] union all select 2 as hint, end_time as when [...] ) q order by q.seq, when
