ORDER BY clause in BigQuery

The ORDER BY clause in BigQuery is used to sort the result set of a query by one or more columns.

SQL Syntax

SELECT column1, column2
FROM `project_name.dataset_name.table_name`
[WHERE condition]
ORDER BY column1 [ASC | DESC], column2 [ASC | DESC], ...;

If the sort order is not specified, BigQuery sorts the column in ascending order by default. We can explicitly use ASC for ascending order or DESC for descending order.

Sorting by a Single Column (Ascending Order)

By default, the ORDER BY clause sorts the column in ascending order.

SQL

SELECT *
FROM `data-to-insights.ecommerce.sales_report`
ORDER BY total_ordered;

The output of the above query is shown below:

Even if the total_ordered column is not selected in the SELECT clause, the result set can still be sorted by it.

SQL

SELECT productSKU, name
FROM `data-to-insights.ecommerce.sales_report`
ORDER BY total_ordered;

The output of the above query is shown below:

Sorting by a Single Column (Descending Order)

To sort the result set in descending order, use the DESC keyword with the column name.

SQL

SELECT *
FROM `data-to-insights.ecommerce.sales_report`
ORDER BY total_ordered DESC;

The output of the above query is shown below:

Sorting by Multiple Columns

We can sort the result set by multiple columns by listing them in the ORDER BY clause.

The result is first sorted by the first column.
If there are ties, the second column is used for sorting.
This process continues for additional columns.

SQL

SELECT *
FROM `data-to-insights.ecommerce.sales_report`
ORDER BY total_ordered DESC, name;

This query first sorts the data by total_ordered in descending order. If multiple rows have the same value, they are then sorted by name in ascending order.

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