SQL ORDER BY

The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the result.

---

Sort the Rows

The ORDER BY clause is used to sort the rows.

Orders:

Company	OrderNumber
Sega	3412
ABC Shop	5678
W3Schools	6798
W3Schools	2312

Example

To display the company names in alphabetical order:

SELECT Company, OrderNumber FROM Orders ORDER BY Company

Result:

Company	OrderNumber
ABC Shop	5678
Sega	3412
W3Schools	6798
W3Schools	2312

Example

To display the company names in alphabetical order AND the OrderNumber in numerical order:

SELECT Company, OrderNumber FROM Orders ORDER BY Company, OrderNumber

Result:

Company	OrderNumber
ABC Shop	5678
Sega	3412
W3Schools	2312
W3Schools	6798

Example

To display the company names in reverse alphabetical order:

SELECT Company, OrderNumber FROM Orders ORDER BY Company DESC

Result:

Company	OrderNumber
W3Schools	6798
W3Schools	2312
Sega	3412
ABC Shop	5678

Example

To display the company names in reverse alphabetical order AND the OrderNumber in numerical order:

SELECT Company, OrderNumber FROM Orders ORDER BY Company DESC, OrderNumber ASC

Result:

Company	OrderNumber
W3Schools	2312
W3Schools	6798
Sega	3412
ABC Shop	5678

Notice that there are two equal company names (W3Schools) in the result above. The only time you will see the second column in ASC order would be when there are duplicated values in the first sort column, or a handful of nulls.