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SQL ORDER BY Keyword

The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the result-set.

The ORDER BY Keyword

The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the result-set by a specified column.

The ORDER BY keyword sort the records in ascending order by default.

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

SQL ORDER BY Syntax

SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name
ORDER BY column_name(s) ASC|DESC

ORDER BY Example

The "Persons" table:

P_Id LastName FirstName Address City
1 Hansen Ola Timoteivn 10 Sandnes
2 Svendson Tove Borgvn 23 Sandnes
3 Pettersen Kari Storgt 20 Stavanger
4 Nilsen Tom Vingvn 23 Stavanger

Now we want to select all the persons from the table above, however, we want to sort the persons by their last name.

We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT * FROM Persons
ORDER BY LastName

The result-set will look like this:

P_Id LastName FirstName Address City
1 Hansen Ola Timoteivn 10 Sandnes
4 Nilsen Tom Vingvn 23 Stavanger
3 Pettersen Kari Storgt 20 Stavanger
2 Svendson Tove Borgvn 23 Sandnes

ORDER BY DESC Example

Now we want to select all the persons from the table above, however, we want to sort the persons descending by their last name.

We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT * FROM Persons
ORDER BY LastName DESC

The result-set will look like this:

P_Id LastName FirstName Address City
2 Svendson Tove Borgvn 23 Sandnes
3 Pettersen Kari Storgt 20 Stavanger
4 Nilsen Tom Vingvn 23 Stavanger
1 Hansen Ola Timoteivn 10 Sandnes

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