ORDER BY and LIMIT

ORDER BY sorts the result set. LIMIT caps the number of rows returned.

Sorting with ORDER BY

SELECT first_name, last_name, salary
FROM employees
ORDER BY salary DESC;

ASC (ascending, A→Z, 0→9) is the default. DESC reverses it.

Sorting by multiple columns

Rows are sorted by the first column, then by the second for ties:

SELECT first_name, last_name, department_id, salary
FROM employees
ORDER BY department_id ASC, salary DESC;

LIMIT — return only N rows

-- Top 5 earners
SELECT first_name, last_name, salary
FROM employees
ORDER BY salary DESC
LIMIT 5;

OFFSET — skip N rows

Use with LIMIT for pagination:

-- Rows 11–20 ordered by last name
SELECT first_name, last_name
FROM employees
ORDER BY last_name
LIMIT 10 OFFSET 10;

Stable tie-breaking

When two rows have identical sort values, the order between them is undefined. Add a unique column (like id) as a final sort key to guarantee a deterministic result:

ORDER BY salary DESC, id ASC

Tips

• ORDER BY is almost always the last clause in a query.
• LIMIT without ORDER BY returns an arbitrary subset — rarely what you want.
• Column aliases defined in SELECT can be used in ORDER BY.