SQL Order By Clause

SQL ORDER BY Keyword

The ORDER BY clause in SQL is used to sort the result set of a query based on one or more columns. You can arrange the results in either ascending (ASC) or descending (DESC) order.

Why Use ORDER BY?

Helps organize query results logically.

Useful for reporting, analytics, and user-friendly outputs.

Default sorting is ascending, but you can specify descending as needed.

Syntax:

SELECT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name
ORDER BY column1 [ASC | DESC], column2 [ASC | DESC], ...;

column1, column2: Columns you want to retrieve.

table_name: Name of the table.

ORDER BY: Clause used to sort the result.

ASC: Ascending order (default).

DESC: Descending order.

EMPLOYEES Table

ID	Name	Salary
1	Shweta	12000
2	Raj	25000
3	Abhi	18000
4	Roshani	15000

Example: Default Order (Ascending)

SELECT *
FROM employees
ORDER BY salary;

Output:

ID	Name	Header 3
1	Shweta	12000
4	Roshani	15000
3	Abhi	18000
2	Raj	25000

By default, the ORDER BY clause sorts salaries from lowest to highest.

Example: Descending Order

SELECT *
FROM employees
ORDER BY salary DESC;

Output:

ID	Name	Salary
2	Raj	25000
3	Abhi	18000
4	Roshani	15000
1	Shweta	12000

With DESC, the result is sorted from highest to lowest salary.

Key Point

You can sort by multiple columns, like:

SELECT * FROM employees ORDER BY age ASC, salary DESC;

Always appears at the end of a SELECT query.

Use ASC and DESC explicitly for clarity, even though ASC is the default.