Can I order by IN value

Question

Can I sort by the value of an IN query?

The following defaults to "order item_id lowest first" but i actually want the sort as entered... is this possible?

e.g.

select item_id, item_title, item_source from items where item_id IN ('1676','1559','1672')

I want to return:

item_id     item_title    item_source
-------     ----------    -----------
1676        item_a        source_a
1559        item_f        source_f
1672        item_c        source_c

Answer 1

You can JOIN these values in the IN predicate like so:

SELECT 
  i.item_id,
  i.item_title
  i.item_source
FROM items i
INNER JOIN
(
   SELECT 0 sortid, 1676 id
   UNION ALL
   SELECT 1,        1559 
   UNION ALL
   SELECT 2,        1672
) t ON i.item_id = t.id
ORDER BY t.sortid

SQL Fiddle Demo