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Lesson 1.6 · garden_shop
Lesson 1.6

SQL ORDER BY and LIMIT

Sorting and limiting turns a long result into a focused top-N list.

SQL tables don't promise a useful row order by themselves. Use ORDER BY when the order matters.

Add DESC for largest-to-smallest or newest-to-oldest sorting. Then use LIMIT when you only need the first few rows.

Without DESC, the sort runs smallest to largest. That is how a stock report finds what is about to run out.

Pattern 
select column_one, column_two
from table_name
order by sort_column desc
limit 5
Ready to run it?

Open the DuckDB playground with the matching dataset and query already filled in.

Try ORDER BY LIMIT in the playground
Syntax reference
Need syntax details? See the SQL SELECT reference
Schema · Garden Shop Table · products 9 columns · 24 rows
Table · products

One row per product, with price, cost, and inventory levels.

9 columns · 24 rows
product_id int product_name text category_id int supplier_id int price decimal cost decimal quantity_on_hand int reorder_level int discontinued bool
Your task

Show the product name and quantity on hand for the five products with the least stock, lowest first.

·

Run your query to inspect the result.

Expected answer
  • Columns: product_name, quantity_on_hand.
  • Rows: 5 products, lowest stock first.
  • The first product should be Hanging Basket, with 0 on hand.
← Previous · 1.5 Filtering rows with WHERE
End of Chapter 1

That's the last lesson in “Welcome to the Shed.”

The next chapter builds on what this one covered.

Start Chapter 2: Data Types Before Deep Querying → Begins with 2.1 Why data types matter

Related

Reference
SQL SELECT Syntax

Clause order and the shape of a SELECT query.

Cheatsheet
SQL Query Basics Cheatsheet

SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, and LIMIT at a glance.

Mistake
LIMIT Without ORDER BY Gives Unpredictable Rows

Sort before you limit, or top-N is arbitrary.

Lesson
Your First SQL SELECT Statement

Write a first SELECT and read the returned rows.

Lesson
Choosing Columns and SQL DISTINCT

Return only the columns a report needs, each value once.