Examples with ORDER BY - Amazon Redshift

Amazon Redshift will no longer support the creation of new Python UDFs starting November 1, 2025. If you would like to use Python UDFs, create the UDFs prior to that date. Existing Python UDFs will continue to function as normal. For more information, see the blog post .

Examples with ORDER BY

Return all 11 rows from the CATEGORY table, ordered by the second column, CATGROUP. For results that have the same CATGROUP value, order the CATDESC column values by the length of the character string. Then order by columns CATID and CATNAME. 

select * from category order by 2, length(catdesc), 1, 3;

catid | catgroup |  catname  |                  catdesc
------+----------+-----------+----------------------------------------
10    | Concerts | Jazz      | All jazz singers and bands
9     | Concerts | Pop       | All rock and pop music concerts
11    | Concerts | Classical | All symphony, concerto, and choir conce
6     | Shows    | Musicals  | Musical theatre
7     | Shows    | Plays     | All non-musical theatre
8     | Shows    | Opera     | All opera and light opera
5     | Sports   | MLS       | Major League Soccer
1     | Sports   | MLB       | Major League Baseball
2     | Sports   | NHL       | National Hockey League
3     | Sports   | NFL       | National Football League
4     | Sports   | NBA       | National Basketball Association
(11 rows)

Return selected columns from the SALES table, ordered by the highest QTYSOLD values. Limit the result to the top 10 rows: 

select salesid, qtysold, pricepaid, commission, saletime from sales
order by qtysold, pricepaid, commission, salesid, saletime desc
limit 10;

salesid | qtysold | pricepaid | commission |      saletime
--------+---------+-----------+------------+---------------------
15401   |       8 |    272.00 |      40.80 | 2008-03-18 06:54:56
61683   |       8 |    296.00 |      44.40 | 2008-11-26 04:00:23
90528   |       8 |    328.00 |      49.20 | 2008-06-11 02:38:09
74549   |       8 |    336.00 |      50.40 | 2008-01-19 12:01:21
130232  |       8 |    352.00 |      52.80 | 2008-05-02 05:52:31
55243   |       8 |    384.00 |      57.60 | 2008-07-12 02:19:53
16004   |       8 |    440.00 |      66.00 | 2008-11-04 07:22:31
489     |       8 |    496.00 |      74.40 | 2008-08-03 05:48:55
4197    |       8 |    512.00 |      76.80 | 2008-03-23 11:35:33
16929   |       8 |    568.00 |      85.20 | 2008-12-19 02:59:33
(10 rows)

Return a column list and no rows by using LIMIT 0 syntax: 

select * from venue limit 0;
venueid | venuename | venuecity | venuestate | venueseats
---------+-----------+-----------+------------+------------
(0 rows)