PHP MySQL :: ORDER BY Keyword

The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the data in a recordset.

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The ORDER BY Keyword

The ORDER BY keyword is used to sort the data in a recordset.

The ORDER BY keyword sort the records in ascending order by default.

If you want to sort the records in a descending order, you can use the DESC keyword.

Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name(s) ASC|DESC

To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

Example

The following example selects all the data stored in the "Persons" table, and sorts the result by the "Age" column:

<?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con)   {   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());   } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons ORDER BY age"); while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))   {   echo $row['FirstName'];   echo " " . $row['LastName'];   echo " " . $row['Age'];   echo "<br />";   } mysql_close($con); ?>

The output of the code above will be:

Glenn Quagmire 33 Peter Griffin 35

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Order by Two Columns

It is also possible to order by more than one column. When ordering by more than one column, the second column is only used if the values in the first column are equal:

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name ORDER BY column1, column2

PHP MySQL :: WHERE clause

The WHERE clause is used to filter records.

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The WHERE clause

The WHERE clause is used to extract only those records that fulfill a specified criterion.

Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name WHERE column_name operator value

To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

To get PHP to execute the statement above we must use the mysql_query() function. This function is used to send a query or command to a MySQL connection.

Example

The following example selects all rows from the "Persons" table where "FirstName='Peter':

<?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con)   {   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());   } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons WHERE FirstName='Peter'"); while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))   {   echo $row['FirstName'] . " " . $row['LastName'];   echo "<br />";   } ?>

The output of the code above will be:

Peter Griffin

PHP MySQL :: Select Data From a Database Table

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

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Select Data From a Database Table

The SELECT statement is used to select data from a database.

Syntax

SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name

To learn more about SQL, please visit our SQL tutorial.

To get PHP to execute the statement above we must use the mysql_query() function. This function is used to send a query or command to a MySQL connection.

Example

The following example selects all the data stored in the "Persons" table (The * character selects all the data in the table):

<?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con)   {   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());   } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons"); while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))   {   echo $row['FirstName'] . " " . $row['LastName'];   echo "<br />";   } mysql_close($con); ?>

The example above stores the data returned by the mysql_query() function in the $result variable.

Next, we use the mysql_fetch_array() function to return the first row from the recordset as an array. Each call to mysql_fetch_array() returns the next row in the recordset. The while loop loops through all the records in the recordset. To print the value of each row, we use the PHP $row variable ($row['FirstName'] and $row['LastName']).

The output of the code above will be:

Peter Griffin Glenn Quagmire

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Display the Result in an HTML Table

The following example selects the same data as the example above, but will display the data in an HTML table:

<?php $con = mysql_connect("localhost","peter","abc123"); if (!$con)   {   die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());   } mysql_select_db("my_db", $con); $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM Persons"); echo "<table border='1'> <tr> <th>Firstname</th> <th>Lastname</th> </tr>"; while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))   {   echo "<tr>";   echo "<td>" . $row['FirstName'] . "</td>";   echo "<td>" . $row['LastName'] . "</td>";   echo "</tr>";   } echo "</table>"; mysql_close($con); ?>

The output of the code above will be:

Firstname	Lastname
Glenn	Quagmire
Peter	Griffin