How the order by command works

Mysql 8: ORDER BY

Written by: , 2009-04-16 21:16:45

Just retrieving data from a database might not always be enough. Getting it in a structured order might be just as important. Presenting ORDER BY.

ORDER BY asks for a column, or several columns, and sorts it after that. You can also set if you want ascending or descending order.
By default, the sorting order is ascending.

Ascending is low -> high.
Descending is high -> low.

This will be our table 'person'

|--------------------+--------------------+--------------------|

|Name                |Age                 |Gender              |

|____________________+____________________+____________________|

|Bob                  34                   Male                |

|Silvia               67                   Female              |

|Magnus               24                   Male                |

|Lisa                 32                   Female              |

+--------------------------------------------------------------+

Syntax:

SELECT column
FROM table_name
ORDER BY rule

Example:

SELECT *

FROM person

ORDERY BY Name Asc

Name	Age	Gender
Bob	34	Male
Lisa	32	Female
Magnus	24	Male
Silvia	67	Female

Example:

SELECT *

FROM person

ORDER BY Age ASC

|--------------------+--------------------+--------------------|

|Name                |Age                 |Gender              |

|____________________+____________________+____________________|

|Bob                  34                   Male                |

|Lisa                 32                   Female              |

|Magnus               24                   Male                |

|Silvia               67                   Female              |

+--------------------------------------------------------------+

You also sort by two columns. This way it will sort by the first column first, if there are several equal values, they will in turn be sorted by the second column.

Example:

SELECT *

FROM person

ORDER BY Gender, Age ASC

|--------------------+--------------------+--------------------|

|Name                |Age                 |Gender              |

|____________________+____________________+____________________|

|Lisa                 32                   Female              |

|Silvia               67                   Female              |

|Magnus               24                   Male                |

|Bob                  34                   Male                |

+--------------------------------------------------------------+

This sorts first by Gender, if a record has the same gender as another, they will be sorted by age.

It's also possible to have differant sorting orders:

Example:

SELECT *

FROM person

ORDER BY Gender ASC, Age DESC

|--------------------+--------------------+--------------------|

|Name                |Age                 |Gender              |

|____________________+____________________+____________________|

|Silvia               67                   Female              |

|Lisa                 32                   Female              |

|Bob                  34                   Male                |

|Magnus               24                   Male                |

+--------------------------------------------------------------+

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