John,

<< Tim, my question was in my first post. It apparently is not possible,
which I understand and accept. I have been able to solve my specific need by
using memory-tables. I appreciate all replies that were given. >>

I was referring to this later statement:

"But I also need to do a GROUP BY on the same column as ORDER BY, or else it
will return to many rows (because of a JOIN LEFT that I am also doing)."

There aren't any JOINs in the original SELECT statement that you posted,
hence my request for the actual SQL statement.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com