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SQL ORDER BY Clause

The ‘Order by’ clause in SQL is used with the SELECT statement for arranging retrieved data in sorted order. The ‘order by’ clause by default sorts the retrieved data in ascending order. In other to sort the data in descending order, the DESC keyword is used with an order by clause.

Below is the syntax of the Order By statement.

SELECT column-list|* FROM table-name ORDER BY ASC | DESC;

Using default Order by

Let’s consider the Emp table below,

eid	name	age	salary
1	Mike	22	9000
2	John	26	8000
3	Rerki	21	6000
4	Willi	22	10000
5	Tailor	25	8000

SELECT * FROM Emp ORDER BY salary;

eid	name	age	salary
3	Rerki	21	6000
2	John	26	8000
5	Tailor	25	8000
1	Mike	22	9000
4	Willi	22	10000

Using Order by DESC

Let’s consider the Emp table described above,

SELECT * FROM Emp ORDER BY salary DESC;

The query above will return the resultant data in descending order of the salary.

eid	name	age	salary
4	Willi	22	10000
1	Mike	22	9000
2	John	26	8000
5	Tailor	25	8000
3	Rerki	21	6000