Easy Sort Function

I was wondering what would be the easiest way to sort (thru pagination) "tickets" based on a value in the ticket.

 

My tickets have a value in the table of 0,1,2, or 3 based on priority

 

So on the index page need 4 links then if clicked will pull all tickets based on the priority value.

 

Url would look like tickets/high or tickets/low or something similar.

 

I could easily make 4 functions so the function would pull records based on conditions value => 1 but that seems like overkill to have 4 same functions.

 

If i could make a function sort($priority)

{

 

//pull records based on priority

 

}

 

But not sure how i would get the value other than doing an

if ($priority ==="high")

{

$priority_value = 3;

 

}

 

Ideas?

 

Thanks

 

Dave