Sorting with ORDER BY

Without ORDER BY, a database returns rows in no guaranteed order — whatever is fastest. When order matters, ask for it.

SELECT name, price
FROM products
ORDER BY price;

+-----------------------------+--------+
|            name             | price  |
+-----------------------------+--------+
| USB-C Hub                   |   35.5 |
| Laptop Stand                |     42 |
| Webcam                      |   59.9 |
| Mechanical Keyboard         |     89 |
| Noise-Cancelling Headphones |    199 |
| 27-inch Monitor             | 249.99 |
+-----------------------------+--------+

ASC (ascending, smallest first) is the default. DESC sorts largest first:

SELECT name, price
FROM products
ORDER BY price DESC;

+-----------------------------+--------+
|            name             | price  |
+-----------------------------+--------+
| 27-inch Monitor             | 249.99 |
| Noise-Cancelling Headphones |    199 |
| Mechanical Keyboard         |     89 |
| Webcam                      |   59.9 |
| Laptop Stand                |     42 |
| USB-C Hub                   |   35.5 |
+-----------------------------+--------+

Sorting by several columns

SELECT name, category, price
FROM products
ORDER BY category, price DESC;

+-----------------------------+-------------+--------+
|            name             |  category   | price  |
+-----------------------------+-------------+--------+
| Mechanical Keyboard         | Accessories |     89 |
| Laptop Stand                | Accessories |     42 |
| USB-C Hub                   | Accessories |   35.5 |
| Noise-Cancelling Headphones | Audio       |    199 |
| 27-inch Monitor             | Displays    | 249.99 |
| Webcam                      | Video       |   59.9 |
+-----------------------------+-------------+--------+

Rows are sorted by category first; within each category, by price from highest to lowest.

Sorting by an alias

You can sort by a column alias from the SELECT:

SELECT name, price * 1.2 AS with_tax
FROM products
ORDER BY with_tax DESC;

+-----------------------------+--------------------+
|            name             |      with_tax      |
+-----------------------------+--------------------+
| 27-inch Monitor             |            299.988 |
| Noise-Cancelling Headphones | 238.79999999999998 |
| Mechanical Keyboard         |              106.8 |
| Webcam                      |              71.88 |
| Laptop Stand                |               50.4 |
| USB-C Hub                   |               42.6 |
+-----------------------------+--------------------+

Where do NULLs go?

SQLite and MySQL put NULLs first when sorting ascending; PostgreSQL and Oracle put them last. Standard SQL lets you choose with NULLS FIRST or NULLS LAST (supported by SQLite and PostgreSQL):

SELECT name, city FROM customers ORDER BY city NULLS LAST;

+-------------------+----------+
|       name        |   city   |
+-------------------+----------+
| Margaret Hamilton | Boston   |
| Linus Torvalds    | Helsinki |
| Ada Lovelace      | London   |
| Alan Turing       | London   |
| Grace Hopper      | New York |
| Tim Berners-Lee   | NULL     |
+-------------------+----------+

Practice

List all orders from newest to oldest.

SELECT id, ordered_on, status
FROM orders
ORDER BY ordered_on DESC;

+----+------------+-----------+
| id | ordered_on |  status   |
+----+------------+-----------+
|  8 | 2025-04-22 | pending   |
|  7 | 2025-04-10 | shipped   |
|  6 | 2025-04-02 | pending   |
|  5 | 2025-03-18 | cancelled |
|  4 | 2025-03-01 | delivered |
|  3 | 2025-02-20 | shipped   |
|  2 | 2025-02-14 | delivered |
|  1 | 2025-01-05 | delivered |
+----+------------+-----------+