Oracle PL/SQL in 10 Minutes, Sams Teach Yourself

Lesson 5. Sorting Retrieved Data

This lesson shows you how to use the SELECT statement’s ORDER BY clause to sort retrieved data as needed.

Sorting Data

As you learned in the last lesson, the following SQL statement returns a single column from a database table. But look at the output. The data appears to be displayed in no particular order at all:

Input

SELECT prod_nameFROM products;

Output

+----------------+| prod_name      |+----------------+| .5 ton anvil   || 1 ton anvil    || 2 ton anvil    || Oil can        || Fuses          || Sling          || TNT (1 stick)  || TNT (5 sticks) || Bird seed      || Carrots        || Safe           || Detonator      || JetPack 1000   || JetPack 2000   |+----------------+

Actually, the retrieved data ...