You may want the information returned in a specific order. Use the ORDER BY clause to sort the information by the values in one or more columns.
The following statement displays the employees in department 84 ordered by number of years employed:
SELECT NAME, JOB, YEARS
FROM STAFF
WHERE DEPT = 84
ORDER BY YEARS
This statement produces the following result:
NAME JOB YEARS
--------- ----- ------
Davis Sales 5
Gafney Clerk 5
Edwards Sales 7
Quill Mgr 10
Specify ORDER BY as the last clause in the entire SELECT statement. Columns named in this clause can be expressions or any column of the table. The column names in the ORDER BY clause do not have to be specified in the select list.
You can order rows in ascending or descending order by explicitly specifying either ASC or DESC within the ORDER BY clause. If neither is specified, the rows are automatically ordered in ascending sequence. The following statement displays the employees in department 84 in descending order by number of years employed:
SELECT NAME, JOB, YEARS
FROM STAFF
WHERE DEPT = 84
ORDER BY YEARS DESC
This statement produces the following result:
NAME JOB YEARS
--------- ----- ------
Quill Mgr 10
Edwards Sales 7
Davis Sales 5
Gafney Clerk 5
You can order rows by character values as well as numeric values. The following statement displays the employees in department 84 in alphabetical order by name:
SELECT NAME, JOB, YEARS
FROM STAFF
WHERE DEPT = 84
ORDER BY NAME
This statement produces the following result:
NAME JOB YEARS
--------- ----- ------
Davis Sales 5
Edwards Sales 7
Gafney Clerk 5
Quill Mgr 10