PostgreSQL ORDER BY clause

The PostgreSQL ORDER BY clause is used for sorting data in ascending or descending order. The data is sorted on the base on one or more columns.

Syntax:

SELECT column-list
FROM table_name
[WHERE condition]
[ORDER BY column1, column2, .. columnN] [ASC | DESC];

Parameters explanation:

column_list: It specifies the columns or calculations that you want to retrieve.

table_name: It specifies the tables that you want to retrieve records from. There must be at least one table listed in the FROM clause.

WHERE conditions: It is optional. It specifies that the condition must be fulfilled to retrieve records.

ASC: It is also optional. It sorts the result set in ascending order by expression (default, if no modifier is provider).

DESC: It is also optional. It sorts the result set in descending order by expression.

See this example:

Let's take a table "EMPLOYEES" having the following data.

Execute the following query to retrieve the records ORDER BY AGE in ascending order:

SELECT * 
FROM "EMPLOYEES"
ORDER BY "AGE" ASC;

Output:

Execute the following query to retrieve the records ORDER BY NAME in descending order:

SELECT * 
FROM "EMPLOYEES"
ORDER BY "NAME" DESC;

Output:

You can also fetch the records from table ORDER BY multiple columns.

Execute the following query to fetch the records from table "EMPLOYEES" ORDER BY NAME and ADDRESS in ascending order.

SELECT * 
FROM "EMPLOYEES" 
ORDER BY "NAME", "ADDRESS" ASC;

Output:

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