Which SQL clause is used to sort the data?

In this article, I will show you a few code examples on how you can sort your data in ascending order using the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

ORDER BY syntax

This is the basic syntax to sort your data in ascending order:

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column;

If you want to sort by descending order, then you have to use the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

The

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

The

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

In this example, we have a table of musicians with the columns of

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

Right now, this table is sorted automatically by

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

If we wanted to sort the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY name;

The

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY name;

You can see that the

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY name;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

If we wanted to sort the data by

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY city;

You can also sort multiple columns in ascending order in the same command.

In this new musician example, we can sort the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY age, city;

We can see there are three 19 year old musicians with their respective cities alphabetically sorted in the table. We can also see the two 38 year old musicians with their cities properly sorted in alphabetical order.

If we wanted to sort some of the data in ascending order and other data in descending order, then we would have to use the

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY name;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

In this new musician example, we want to sort the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

Here is the syntax:

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY age DESC, instrument ASC;

We have to use both the

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY name;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

The result would look like this:

We can see in our table that both Oscar and Jenny are the oldest. But Oscar is the top result because drums comes before trombone alphabetically.

We see the same situation with Jess and Dave. Even though they are the same age, Jess is higher in the table because flute comes before trumpet alphabetically.

Conclusion

You can sort your table data in ascending order using the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column;

If you want to sort by descending order then you also have to use the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

The

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY name;

SELECT * FROM table
ORDER BY column;

If you want to sort multiple columns in ascending order then you would list the columns you want to sort next to the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT * FROM table
ORDER BY column1, column2;

If you want to sort some of the data in ascending order and other data in descending order, then you would have to use the

SELECT * FROM musicians
ORDER BY name;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

That is how to use the

SELECT columns FROM table
ORDER BY column DESC;

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Jessica Wilkins

I am a musician and a programmer.

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