SQL ORDER BY statement

The order BY statement is used to sort the result set.

ORDER by statement

The order BY statement is used to sort the result set based on the specified column.

The order BY statement sorts records by default in ascending order (ASC) .

If you want to sort records in descending order , you can use the DESC keyword.

The original table (used in the example):

Orders table:

Company

	OrderNumber
Ibm	3532
W3school	2356
Apple	4698
W3school	6953

Example 1

Show company name in alphabetical order:

ORDER BY Company

Results: Company

	OrderNumber
Apple	4698
Ibm	3532
W3school	6953
W3school	2356

Example 2

Displays the company name in alphabetical order and displays the order number (OrderNumber) in numerical order:

ORDER BY Company, OrderNumber

Results:

Company

	OrderNumber
Apple	4698
Ibm	3532
W3school	2356
W3school	6953

Example 3

Show company name in reverse alphabetical order:

ORDER BY Company DESC

Results: Company

	OrderNumber
W3school	6953
W3school	2356
Ibm	3532
Apple	4698

Example 4

Displays the company name in reverse alphabetical order and displays the sequential number in numerical order:

ORDER BY Company DESC, OrderNumber ASC

Results: Company

	OrderNumber
W3school	2356
W3school	6953
Ibm	3532
Apple	4698

Note : There are two equal company names (W3school) in the results above. Only this time, when there is the same value in the first column, the second column is in ascending order. This is the case if some of the values in the first column are nulls .

SQL ORDER BY statement