Custom sorting using two different columns in MySQL?

For this, use ORDER BY clause along with CASE statement. Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable1610
   -> (
   -> Marks int,
   -> Name varchar(20)
   -> ) ;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.51 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable1610 values(85,'John');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.18 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1610 values(78,'Carol');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.11 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1610 values(78,'John');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.22 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1610 values(85,'Carol');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.20 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select * from DemoTable1610;

This will produce the following output

+-------+-------+
| Marks | Name  |
+-------+-------+
|    85 | John  |
|    78 | Carol |
|    78 | John  |
|    85 | Carol |
+-------+-------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query to custom sort using two different columns in MySQL −

mysql> select * from DemoTable1610
   -> order by Marks,case when Name='Carol' then 1 else 0 end;

This will produce the following output

+-------+-------+
| Marks | Name  |
+-------+-------+
|    78 | John  |
|    78 | Carol |
|    85 | John  |
|    85 | Carol |
+-------+-------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)