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In this article, we aim to explore how to sort data alphabetically in MySQL database.

Sorting is the ordering of elements or values ​​in an array or column based on a particular criteria. In this tutorial, we will set the criteria as alphabetical order and get the names of some students from A to Z.

Let us try to understand how to sort this data alphabetically.

Creating a Table in MySQL

Before we begin, we will create a dummy dataset to work with. Here, we will create a table student_detailsand a few rows.

-- create the table student_details
CREATE TABLE student_details(
  stu_id int,
  stu_firstName varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  stu_lastName varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
  primary key(stu_id)
);
-- insert rows to the table student_details
INSERT INTO student_details(stu_id,stu_firstName,stu_lastName)
 VALUES(1,"Preet","Sanghavi"),
 (2,"Rich","John"),
 (3,"Veron","Brow"),
 (4,"Geo","Jos"),
 (5,"Hash","Shah"),
 (6,"Sachin","Parker"),
 (7,"David","Miller");

The above query creates a table containing the first and last names of students. To view the entries in the data, we use the following code:

SELECT * FROM student_details;

The above code will give the following output:

stu_id  stu_firstName   stu_lastName
1         Preet         Sanghavi
2         Rich          John
3         Veron         Brow
4         Geo           Jos
5         Hash          Shah
6         Sachin        Parker
7         David         Miller

Sort data alphabetically in MySQL database

Now that we have seen how to create a table and view it, let's try to understand exactly how to sort data in MySQL.

We mainly use ORDERthe keyword to sort the data in alphabetical or numerical order. The syntax of this keyword can be better understood with the help of the following query:

select something from table_name ORDER BY something_else;

Let us explore this statement with our student_detailstable and sort the data in ORDERthe column with the help of keyword . This can be done with the help of the following query:stu_firstName

select stu_firstName from student_details ORDER BY stu_firstName;

The output of the above query can be explained as follows:

stu_firstName
David
Geo
Hash
Preet
Rich
Sachin
Veron

Hence, we have successfully sorted the names in ascending order from A to Z.

Note that we can also DESCsort in reverse order with the help of the keyword. This can be understood with the following query:

select stu_firstName from student_details ORDER BY stu_firstName DESC;

The output of the above query is the same as before and can be explained as follows:

stu_firstName
Veron
Sachin
Rich
Preet
Hash
Geo
David

As we can see, we have now reversed the order, from Z to A. Hence, we have successfully learned different techniques to sort the data in MySQL database alphabetically.