MSDN Documentation

ORDER BY Clause

The ORDER BY clause sorts the result set of a SELECT statement according to one or more columns or expressions.

Syntax

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

Key Points

• Default sort direction is ASC (ascending).
• Multiple columns can be specified to create hierarchical sorting.
• Expressions, functions, and column aliases can be used in the ORDER BY list.
• When ORDER BY is omitted, the result set is unordered.

Examples

-- Sort employees by last name ascending
SELECT FirstName, LastName, HireDate
FROM Employees
ORDER BY LastName;

-- Sort products by price descending, then name ascending
SELECT ProductName, Price
FROM Products
ORDER BY Price DESC, ProductName ASC;

Interactive Demo

Try sorting the sample data below: