Abstract: Methods and apparatus permit displaying items of datasets resulting from executing queries on a database in an order specified by a hierarchy. The hierarchy has a number of categories arranged in an order. Each item is associated with one of the categories. The items in a dataset can be ordered by determining which category each item belongs to and looking up the ordinal position of that category in the hierarchy. A list of categories represented in the dataset may be provided. Items may be classified in two or more hierarchies. A user may be permitted to select one of the hierarchies according to which the items should be sorted. The criteria used to classify the items may be different from the criteria used to query the database to obtain the dataset.