>>>From VFP 7 help:
>>>
>>>Each Order_Item must correspond to a column in the query results and can be one of the following:
>>>...
>>>A numeric expression indicating the location of the column in the result table.
>>>
>>>However, the following program causes error
>>>
>>>SQL: Column 'NORDER' is not found.
>>>
>>>How to use expressions in ORDER BY clause ?
>>>
>>>

>>>norder = 1
>>>CREATE CURSOR test ( test c(1) )
>>>SELECT * from test ORDER BY (norder)
>>>

>>
>>SELECT * from test ORDER BY norder
>
>This causes the same error !!!
>
>

>PRIVATE norder
>norder = 1
>CREATE CURSOR test ( test c(1) )
>SELECT * from test ORDER BY norder
>

Andrus,
In my original reply I was a little bit ignorant and sampled in next. Yes it would error becaues there VFP 'thinks' it's a column name.

norder = '1'
SELECT * from test ORDER BY &norder

or :
SELECT * from test ORDER BY 1

Would work. In real life I used & with order by only when I needed to provide somthing like ad-hoc query. Other than that I directly write numerics.
Cetin