Ordering CAML results

Question

Follow up to this question: CAML is ordering by content type even though not specified

I have the following query:

<Where>
<And>
    <Or>
        <Eq>
            <FieldRef Name='_ModerationStatus' />
            <Value Type='ModStat'>0</Value>
        </Eq>
        <BeginsWith>
            <FieldRef Name='ContentTypeId' />
            <Value Type='ContentTypeId'>0x0120</Value>
        </BeginsWith>
    </Or>
    <And>
        <Geq>
            <FieldRef Name='Number' />
            <Value Type='Lookup'>0</Value>
        </Geq>
        <Neq>
            <FieldRef Name='ID' />
            <Value Type='Counter'>0</Value>
        </Neq>
    </And>
</And>
</Where>
<OrderBy>
     <FieldRef Name='NumberOf' LookupId='True' />
</OrderBy>
<GroupBy Collapse='True'>
    <FieldRef Name='NumberOf' />
</GroupBy>

It works well, however not every list item has a value for the column 'NumberOf', so when my results are returned, with the numbers grouped at the bottom of the results, like this:

Is it possible to have the opposite, where the ordered 'NumberOf' column with numbers are first (ie. 2,3,5) and null values afterwards?

Answer 1

Try changing your OrderBy to Descending:

<OrderBy>
  <FieldRef Name='NumberOf' LookupId='True' Ascending='False' />
</OrderBy>

Answer 2

I think the best you can do is to order it by the NumberOf field descending (Ascending='False'), so you'd have 5, 3, 2, null. In either case, you'll need logic after calling this query to resort the result set to meet your needs.