We have seen the SQL SELECT command to fetch data from a MySQL table. When you select rows, the MySQL server is free to return them in any order, unless you instruct it otherwise by saying how to sort the result. But, you sort a result set by adding an ORDER BY clause that names the column or columns which you want to sort.
The following code block is a generic SQL syntax of the SELECT command along with the ORDER BY clause to sort the data from a MySQL table.
SELECT field1, field2,...fieldN table_name1, table_name2... ORDER BY field1, [field2...] [ASC [DESC]]
You can sort the returned result on any field, if that field is being listed out.
You can sort the result on more than one field.
You can use the keyword ASC or DESC to get result in ascending or descending order. By default, it's the ascending order.
You can use the WHERE...LIKE clause in the usual way to put a condition.
You can use a similar syntax of the ORDER BY clause into the PHP function – mysqli_query(). This function is used to execute the SQL command and later another PHP function mysqli_fetch_array() can be used to fetch all the selected data.
Try out the following example, which returns the result in a descending order of the tutorial authors.
<?php
$dbhost = 'remotemysql.com:3036';
$dbuser = 'your_username;
$dbpass = 'your_password';
$conn = mysqli_connect($dbhost, $dbuser, $dbpass);
if(! $conn ) {
die('Could not connect: ' . mysqli_error());
}
$sql = 'SELECT tutorial_id, tutorial_title,
tutorial_author, submission_date
FROM tutorials_tbl
ORDER BY tutorial_author DESC';
mysqli_select_db('TUTORIALS');
$retval = mysqli_query( $sql, $conn );
if(! $retval ) {
die('Could not get data: ' . mysqli_error());
}
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($retval, mysqli_ASSOC)) {
echo "Tutorial ID :{$row['tutorial_id']} <br> ".
"Title: {$row['tutorial_title']} <br> ".
"Author: {$row['tutorial_author']} <br> ".
"Submission Date : {$row['submission_date']} <br> ".
"--------------------------------<br>";
}
echo "Fetched data successfully\n";
mysqli_close($conn);
?>