Example
SELECT * FROM Employees ORDER BY LName
This statement will return all the columns from the table Employees.
| Id | FName | LName | PhoneNumber |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | John | Johnson | 2468101214 |
| 1 | James | Smith | 1234567890 |
| 3 | Michael | Williams | 1357911131 |
SELECT * FROM Employees ORDER BY LName DESC
Or
SELECT * FROM Employees ORDER BY LName ASC
This statement changes the sorting direction.
One may also specify multiple sorting columns. For example:
SELECT * FROM Employees ORDER BY LName ASC, FName ASC
This example will sort the results first by LName and then, for records that have the same LName, sort by FName. This will give you a result similar to what you would find in a telephone book.
In order to save retyping the column name in the ORDER BY clause, it is possible to use instead the column's number. Note that column numbers start from 1.
SELECT Id, FName, LName, PhoneNumber FROM Employees ORDER BY 3
You may also embed a CASE statement in the ORDER BY clause.
SELECT Id, FName, LName, PhoneNumber FROM Employees ORDER BY CASE WHEN LName='Jones` THEN 0 ELSE 1 END ASC
This will sort your results to have all records with the LName of "Jones" at the top.
