
        
        
            
                
                
                    SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table_name
ORDER BY column1, column2 (DESC);

Examples

Consider the following table about some students:

student_id	fname	lname	day_enrolled	age	username
1	Sky	Towner	2015-12-03	17	stowner1
2	Ben	Davis	2016-04-20	19	bdavis2
3	Travis	Apple	2018-08-14	18	tapple3
4	Arthur	David	2016-04-01	16	adavid4
5	Benjamin	Town	2014-01-01	17	btown5

The above sample table can be created using the code here.

Ascending Order

To sort students in ascending order of age:


        
        
            
                
                
                    SELECT * FROM students
ORDER BY age;
                
            
            +------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+
| student_id | fname    | lname  | day_enrolled | age  | username |
+------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+
|          4 | Arthur   | David  | 2016-04-01   |   16 | adavid4  |
|          1 | Sky      | Towner | 2015-12-03   |   17 | stowner1 |
|          5 | Benjamin | Town   | 2014-01-01   |   17 | btown5   |
|          3 | Travis   | Apple  | 2018-08-14   |   18 | tapple3  |
|          2 | Ben      | Davis  | 2016-04-20   |   19 | bdavis2  |
+------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+

Descending Order

To sort students in descending order of age:


        
        
            
                
                
                    SELECT * FROM students
ORDER BY age DESC;
                
            
            +------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+
| student_id | fname    | lname  | day_enrolled | age  | username |
+------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+
|          2 | Ben      | Davis  | 2016-04-20   |   19 | bdavis2  |
|          3 | Travis   | Apple  | 2018-08-14   |   18 | tapple3  |
|          1 | Sky      | Towner | 2015-12-03   |   17 | stowner1 |
|          5 | Benjamin | Town   | 2014-01-01   |   17 | btown5   |
|          4 | Arthur   | David  | 2016-04-01   |   16 | adavid4  |
+------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+

Alphabetical Order

To sort students according to the alphabetical order of their first names:


        
        
            
                
                
                    SELECT * FROM students
WHERE fname is NOT NULL
ORDER BY fname;
                
            
            +------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+
| student_id | fname    | lname  | day_enrolled | age  | username |
+------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+
|          4 | Arthur   | David  | 2016-04-01   |   16 | adavid4  |
|          2 | Ben      | Davis  | 2016-04-20   |   19 | bdavis2  |
|          5 | Benjamin | Town   | 2014-01-01   |   17 | btown5   |
|          1 | Sky      | Towner | 2015-12-03   |   17 | stowner1 |
|          3 | Travis   | Apple  | 2018-08-14   |   18 | tapple3  |
+------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+

Sorting Multiple Columns

To order students according to ascending order of age and then descending order of fname for students with same age:


        
        
            
                
                
                    SELECT * 
FROM students
WHERE fname is NOT NULL
ORDER BY age, fname DESC;
                
            
            +------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+
| student_id | fname    | lname  | day_enrolled | age  | username |
+------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+
|          4 | Arthur   | David  | 2016-04-01   |   16 | adavid4  |
|          1 | Sky      | Towner | 2015-12-03   |   17 | stowner1 |
|          5 | Benjamin | Town   | 2014-01-01   |   17 | btown5   |
|          3 | Travis   | Apple  | 2018-08-14   |   18 | tapple3  |
|          2 | Ben      | Davis  | 2016-04-20   |   19 | bdavis2  |
+------------+----------+--------+--------------+------+----------+

Sorting multiple columns makes sense when column entries have duplicate data (in this case both 'Sky' and 'Benjamin' are 17). For 'Sky' and 'Benjamin' we then proceed to determine their order according to descending alphabetical order of their fname, which is why 'Sky' is returned above 'Benjamin'.