The SQL ORDER BY Keyword
The SQL ORDER BY Keyword
The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the result-set in ascending or descending order.
The ORDER BY keyword sorts the records in ascending order by default. To sort the records in descending order, use the DESC keyword.
ORDER BY Syntax
SELECT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name
ORDER BY column1, column2, ... ASC|DESC;
ORDER BY Example
The following SQL statement selects all customers from the "Customers" table, sorted by the "Country" column:
Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY Country;
ORDER BY DESC Example
The following SQL statement selects all customers from the "Customers" table, sorted DESCENDING by the "Country" column:
Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY Country DESC;
ORDER BY Several Columns Example
The following SQL statement selects all customers from the "Customers" table, sorted by the "Country" and the "CustomerName" column. This means that it orders by Country, but if some rows have the same Country, it orders them by CustomerName:
Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY Country, CustomerName;
ORDER BY Several Columns Example 2
The following SQL statement selects all customers from the "Customers" table, sorted ascending by the "Country" and descending by the "CustomerName" column:
Example
SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY Country ASC, CustomerName DESC;
Example (MySQLi Object-oriented)
<?php
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "myDB";
// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
$sql = "SELECT id, firstname, lastname FROM MyGuests ORDER BY lastname";
$result = $conn->query($sql);
if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
// output data of each row
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
echo "id: " . $row["id"]. " - Name: " . $row["firstname"]. " " . $row["lastname"]. "<br>";
}
} else {
echo "0 results";
}
$conn->close();
?>
Example (MySQLi Procedural)
<?php
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "myDB";
// Create connection
$conn = mysqli_connect($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
// Check connection
if (!$conn) {
die("Connection failed: " . mysqli_connect_error());
}
$sql = "SELECT id, firstname, lastname FROM MyGuests ORDER BY lastname";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
// output data of each row
while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
echo "id: " . $row["id"]. " - Name: " . $row["firstname"]. " " . $row["lastname"]. "<br>";
}
} else {
echo "0 results";
}
mysqli_close($conn);
?>
Example (MySQLi Object-oriented)
<?php
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "myDB";
// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
$sql = "SELECT id, firstname, lastname FROM MyGuests ORDER BY lastname";
$result = $conn->query($sql);
if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
echo "<table><tr><th>ID</th><th>Name</th></tr>";
// output data of each row
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
echo "<tr><td>".$row["id"]."</td><td>".$row["firstname"]." ".$row["lastname"]."</td></tr>";
}
echo "</table>";
} else {
echo "0 results";
}
$conn->close();
?>