Use this tab to sort the rows in your result set.

Components

Available columns   This box lists all the tables you chose for your query, and the columns in each table. It also lists any computed columns that you defined in the Columns tab.

ORDER BY columns   This box stores the columns you chose to sort on. To sort on a column, select a column or set of columns in the Available Columns box and click the Right Arrow. To delete a column, select it in the ORDER BY Columns box and click the Left Arrow. Use the Up and Down Arrows to specify the order of column evaluation. You can sort on column aliases.

Add a Computed Column   Click the Add a Computed Column icon, located between the Right (Add the selected column to the list) and Left (Remove the selected column from the list) Arrows, to open the Expression Editor and build your ORDER BY condition.

Results   Click Results at the bottom of the window to see the results of your query, or an error message if the query contains errors.

SQL   Click SQL at the bottom of the window to see the SQL code for your query.

About ORDER BY conditions

Each item in the ORDER BY column can be labeled as an Up Arrow for ascending order (the default) or a Down Arrow for descending order. To change the order from ascending to descending, click the Arrow.

The only way to ensure that rows are returned in a particular order is to use ORDER BY. In the absence of an ORDER BY clause, SQL Anywhere returns rows in whatever order is most efficient. This means that the appearance of result sets may vary depending on when you last accessed the row and other factors.

See also

• For more information about the Query Editor, see Query Editor introduction.
• For an introduction to ORDER BY, see The ORDER BY clause: Ordering results.
• For more information about ORDER BY, see The ORDER BY clause: sorting query results and Strategic sorting of query results.