Lets say you are getting the records from a table named "items" and you want to sort on last name

So it looks like loosely like this:

var sort_direction = asc
var sort_on = last_name
sql = "select * from items order by $sort_on $sort_direction"

so you want to add links that will refresh the page but change the value of $sort_on and $sort_direction

<a href="/?sort_on=first_name&sort_direction=asc">UpArrow</a> ¦
<a href="/?sort_on=first_name&sort_direction=desc">DownArrow</a>

Hope this helps.

Thanks Demaestro for your quick response.

I think i explained wrongly.

Is it possible to change order eg

1: oranges
2: apples
3: lemon
4: grapes

I want to then, say move record 3:lemons up to replace 4:apples

so new order

1: oranges
3: lemon
2: apples
4: grapes

Basically move the order of any record up or down 1 row?

Can this be done easily?

Add another column in the table that will control the display order of records

ID Name Displayorder
1: oranges 1
2: apples 2
3: lemon 3
4: grapes 4

If 3:lemon is desired to be moved up the final picture will be

1: oranges 1
3: lemon 2
2: apples 3
4: grapes 4

1. Find display order of lemon (3).
2. Find record that has display order of one up (2) i.e. apple.
3. Update the table set displayorder=2 where id=3
4. Update the table set displayorder=3 where id=2

Query the table with Order by displayorder

If you want to actually change the order inside the database, then do what seabird505 said.

If you just need to change it on a webpage, for a particular user, why not use JavaScript (or PHP if you really want to). Basically output your results into a javascript array, and create a function that will move the displayed rows up/down. Shouldn't be too hard.