Practical SQL Handbook, The: Using SQL Variants, Fourth Edition

Sort Up, Sort Down

You can specify a direction—low to high or high to low—for each sort by using the ascending (ASC) or descending (DESC) keyword immediately after the sort item. Ascending is the default, assumed to be in effect unless you type DESC, which means you don't really need to use ASC except to make the direction of the sort unavoidably explicit to others who read the query.

Here's how you'd get pub_ids to display in descending order:

SQL

select title_id, pub_id, price * ytd_sales as Income, price
from titles
where type in ('business', 'psychology')
order by pub_id desc,  price desc title_id pub_id Income price ======== ====== ============== ========== BU1032 1389 122809.05 29.99 BU7832 1389 122809.05 29.99 BU1111 1389 85078.20 21.95 ...