PostgreSQL - ORDER BY clause

In this article, we would like to show you how to use ORDER BY clause in PostgreSQL.

Quick solution:

SELECT "column1", "column2", ...
FROM "table_name"
ORDER BY "column1", "column2", ... ASC|DESC;

Practical example

To show how the ORDER BY clause works, we will use the following table:

Note:

At the end of this article you can find database preparation SQL queries.

Example 1

In this example, we will sort users data by name.

Note:

By default ORDER BY clause sorts the data in ascending order.

Query:

SELECT * FROM "users" ORDER BY "name";

Output:

Example 2

In this example, we will sort users data by name in descending order.

Query:

SELECT * FROM "users" ORDER BY "name" DESC;

Output:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE "users" (
	"id" SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
	"name" VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	"role" VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL
);

 insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO "users"
	("name", "role")
VALUES
	('John', 'admin'),
	('Chris', 'moderator'),
	('Kate', 'user'),
	('Denis', 'moderator');