This SQL tutorial focuses on the SQL Server ORDER BY clause, and provides explanations, examples and exercises. For this lesson exercises use this link.
The order of records retrieved by a query is undefined, to specify the order in which rows are displayed, you can use the SQL Server ORDER BY clause. This tutorial explains how to sort the query result set in an ascending and descending order, and also how to sort by multiple columns.
Sort the results in ascending and descending order
The SQL Server ORDER BY clause is used to sort the query result set, based on a certain column:
ORDER BY column_name
For example, the following SQL Server example sorts the result set by salary (in ascending order, from the lowest to the highest):
SELECT employee_id, last_name, salary FROM employees ORDER BY salary
To reverse the order in which rows are displayed, use the keyword DESC after the column name in the SQL Server ORDER BY clause:
SELECT employee_id, last_name, salary FROM employees ORDER BY salary DESC
Sort by multiple columns
You can sort the query result set by more than one column. In the ORDER BY clause, specify the columns and separate them using commas.
This SQL Server example sorts the result set by department number and then by salary:
SELECT last_name, salary FROM employees ORDER BY department_id, salary
This SQL Server example sorts the result set by department number in descending order and then by salary:
SELECT last_name , salary FROM employees ORDER BY department_id DESC, salary
