What is Sorting

Sorting allows you to arrange query results in a specific order using ORDER BY.

By default, SQL sorts data in ascending order (ASC).

Basic Syntax

sql
SELECT column1, column2
FROM table_name
ORDER BY column_name [ASC | DESC];

• ASC → Ascending (smallest to largest)
• DESC → Descending (largest to smallest)

Example Dataset

Table: employees

Sorting in Ascending Order

sql
SELECT * FROM employees
ORDER BY salary ASC;

Sorts employees from lowest to highest salary.

Sorting in Descending Order

sql
SELECT * FROM employees
ORDER BY salary DESC;

Sorts employees from highest to lowest salary.

Sorting by Multiple Columns

sql
SELECT * FROM employees
ORDER BY department ASC, salary DESC;

• First sorts by department
• Then sorts salary within each department

Limiting Results (LIMIT)

LIMIT is used to restrict the number of rows returned.

sql
SELECT * FROM employees
LIMIT 3;

Returns only the first 3 rows.

Combining ORDER BY with LIMIT

This is very common in interviews.

sql
SELECT * FROM employees
ORDER BY salary DESC
LIMIT 1;

Returns the employee with the highest salary.

Getting Top N Results

sql
SELECT name, salary FROM employees
ORDER BY salary DESC
LIMIT 3;

Returns top 3 highest-paid employees.

Key Concepts

• ORDER BY controls result order
• Default order is ascending
• Use DESC for highest values first
• LIMIT restricts number of rows
• ORDER BY + LIMIT is used for top/bottom queries