Database Reference
In-Depth Information
The default sort direction is ascending. To make the direction for an ascending sort
explicit, add
ASC
after the sorted column's name:
SELECT
*
FROM
driver_log
ORDER
BY
name
ASC
;
The opposite (or reverse) of ascending order is descending order, specified by adding
DESC
after the sorted column's name:
mysql>
SELECT * FROM driver_log ORDER BY name DESC;
+--------+-------+------------+-------+
| rec_id | name | trav_date | miles |
+--------+-------+------------+-------+
| 2 | Suzi | 2014-07-29 | 391 |
| 7 | Suzi | 2014-08-02 | 502 |
| 10 | Henry | 2014-07-30 | 203 |
| 8 | Henry | 2014-08-01 | 197 |
| 6 | Henry | 2014-07-26 | 115 |
| 4 | Henry | 2014-07-27 | 96 |
| 3 | Henry | 2014-07-29 | 300 |
| 5 | Ben | 2014-07-29 | 131 |
| 9 | Ben | 2014-08-02 | 79 |
| 1 | Ben | 2014-07-30 | 152 |
+--------+-------+------------+-------+
Closely examine the output from the queries just shown and you'll notice that although
rows are sorted by name, rows for any given name are in no special order. (The
trav_date
values aren't in date order for Henry or Ben, for example.) That's because
MySQL doesn't sort something unless you tell it to:
• The overall order of rows returned by a query is indeterminate unless you specify
an
ORDER
BY
clause.
•
Within a group of rows that sort together based on the values in a given column,
the order of values in other columns also is indeterminate unless you name them
in the
ORDER
BY
clause.
To more fully control output order, specify a multiple-column sort by listing each col‐
umn to use for sorting, separated by commas. The following query sorts in ascending
order by
name
and by
trav_date
within the rows for each name:
mysql>
SELECT * FROM driver_log ORDER BY name, trav_date;
+--------+-------+------------+-------+
| rec_id | name | trav_date | miles |
+--------+-------+------------+-------+
| 5 | Ben | 2014-07-29 | 131 |
| 1 | Ben | 2014-07-30 | 152 |
| 9 | Ben | 2014-08-02 | 79 |
| 6 | Henry | 2014-07-26 | 115 |
| 4 | Henry | 2014-07-27 | 96 |
| 3 | Henry | 2014-07-29 | 300 |
| 10 | Henry | 2014-07-30 | 203 |
