Sort By Multiple Columns

Use more than one sort key so ties are broken deterministically.

5/5 supported engines validation-green 1 example 2 scenarios

Docker-validated Not currently validation-green

Example 1

Sort by priority, then by name

Rows with the same priority are then sorted alphabetically by name.

Source table data Rows loaded before the example query runs.

Setup

CREATE TABLE tasks (name VARCHAR(50), priority INT);

INSERT INTO
  tasks (name, priority)
VALUES
  ('Deploy', 1),
  ('Backups', 2),
  ('Alerts', 1);

Validated query Shared across supported engines.

SQL

SELECT
  name,
  priority
FROM
  tasks
ORDER BY
  priority ASC,
  name ASC;

Expected result Returned rows for the shared example.

name	priority
Alerts	1
Deploy	1
Backups	2

The secondary sort key makes the result deterministic across engines.

Useful when

Where this command helps.

sorting by date and then by id for stable results
adding a tie-breaker when many rows share the same primary sort value

Explanation

What the command is doing.

Multiple ORDER BY expressions are common in production queries. The first expression sets the primary sort, and later expressions break ties so the output remains stable and predictable.

Sort By Multiple Columns

Sort by priority, then by name

Where this command helps.

What the command is doing.

Keep moving through nearby tasks.