SQL Sorting — ORDER BY | Learn Computer Academy

Sorting — ORDER BY

ORDER BY controls the sequence results come back in — it doesn't change which rows are returned, only their order.

ASC

Sorts results from lowest to highest (the default direction).

SELECT * FROM table_name
ORDER BY column ASC;

SELECT * FROM Employee
ORDER BY salary ASC;

Sorts salary from lowest to highest.
Ascending is the default — ASC can be omitted entirely.

Common Mistake

Assuming a result's order without specifying ORDER BY on a column that isn't naturally ordered — without it, order is not guaranteed.

DESC

Sorts results from highest to lowest.

SELECT * FROM table_name
ORDER BY column DESC;

SELECT * FROM Employee
ORDER BY salary DESC;

The highest salary appears first.
Commonly used for rankings and leaderboards.

Common Mistake

Forgetting DESC applies only to the column it directly follows when sorting by multiple columns.

Sorting is straightforward once you know the two keywords. The next lesson covers something a bit bigger: collapsing rows into summarized groups with GROUP BY and HAVING.