The default sort order in MySQL tables is ascending. Whenever we use ORDER BY clause to sort out the rows of a table, MySQL gives output in ascending order, with the smallest value first. Consider the following example from a table named ‘student’ −
mysql> Select * from student order by name; +--------+--------+--------+ | Name | RollNo | Grade | +--------+--------+--------+ | Aarav | 150 | M.SC | | Aryan | 165 | M.tech | | Gaurav | 100 | B.tech | +--------+--------+--------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
We can see the query above gives the output, ordered by name, in ascending order, start with smallest value ‘Name’ column.