One note: While using field number for anything is perfecrly valid SQL, this will not pass a code review if I'm the one doing the review. Reason being, it's not clear without looking at the field list what is being ordered. For extra shame do something like:

    select * from foo order by 2

Order of the fields when doing "select *" may be guaranteed (I don't know) but they have been dependent on when the feild was added to the database on every system I have worked with, and sometimes patches are applied in diffrent orders on diffrent databases.