SQL ORDER BY Clause

The ORDER BY clause in SQL is used to sort the result set of a query in ascending or descending order based on one or more columns.

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1. Overview

The ORDER BY clause allows users to specify the sorting criteria for the rows returned by a query. It can be applied to one or more columns, and the sorting can be done in ascending or descending order.

Example:

// Example of using the ORDER BY clause
SELECT *
FROM products
ORDER BY price DESC;

In this example, the ORDER BY clause sorts the rows from the products table based on the price column in descending order.

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2. Syntax

The basic syntax of the ORDER BY clause is as follows:

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

The ASC keyword is used to sort in ascending order (default), and the DESC keyword is used to sort in descending order.

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3. Usage

To use the ORDER BY clause, specify the column(s) to sort by after the ORDER BY keyword in an SQL statement.

Example:

// Example of using the ORDER BY clause with multiple columns
SELECT *
FROM employees
ORDER BY department ASC, salary DESC;

This example sorts the rows from the employees table first by department in ascending order and then by salary in descending order.

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4. Conclusion

The SQL ORDER BY clause is a powerful feature for sorting query results in a specified order based on one or more columns. It allows users to customize the order in which data is displayed, providing greater control and flexibility in SQL queries.