How to Sort MySQL Data Alphabetically

In today’s post, we’ll look at many methods for sorting data alphabetically in MySQL.

Sort MySQL Data Alphabetically

The rows in the result set are in any order when you use the SELECT command to query data from a table. To arrange the rows in the result set, you must include the ORDER BY clause in the SELECT statement.

MySQL always evaluates the ORDER BY clause following the FROM and SELECT clauses when running a SELECT statement containing an ORDER BY clause.

Syntax:

SELECT column_name FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name ASC;
SELECT column_name FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name DESC;
SELECT column_name FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name ASC|DESC, column_name2 ASC|DESC;

The terms ASC and DESC stand for ascending and descending, respectively. ASC and DESC are used to sort the result set in ascending and descending order.

If you don’t explicitly indicate any choice, the ORDER BY clause defaults to using ASC. As a result, the following ORDER BY clauses are interchangeable:

SELECT column_name FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name ASC;
SELECT column_name FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name;

To further understand the previous concept, consider the following example:

SELECT name FROM Employees ORDER BY name ASC;
SELECT name FROM Employees ORDER BY name DESC;

The name column values are shown in the preceding example, first in ascending and subsequent in descending order.

All names beginning with A and ending with Z will be displayed in ascending order. Similarly, all names beginning with Z and ending with A will be displayed in descending order.

Run the above code line in any browser compatible with MySQL. It will display the following outcome: