MySQL Order By

PHP MySQL ORDER BY

When you retrieve data from a database, the rows are returned in the order they were stored. To sort the result-set, you use the ORDER BY clause.

Sorting Results

The ORDER BY clause sorts the records in ascending order by default. To sort the records in descending order, you use the DESC keyword.

<?php
// Database connection code omitted...

// Select all users and sort them alphabetically by their lastname
$sql = "SELECT id, firstname, lastname FROM MyGuests ORDER BY lastname ASC";
$result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql);
if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0) {
  while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo "id: " . $row["id"] . " - Name: " . $row["firstname"] . " " . $row["lastname"] . "<br>";
  }
} else {
  echo "0 results";
}
?>

Use Cases:

• ORDER BY date DESC: Useful for showing the most recent blog posts or comments at the top of a page.
• ORDER BY price ASC: Used in e-commerce sites to sort products from lowest price to highest price.