SORT BY clause
Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime
Returns the result rows sorted within each partition in the user specified order. When there is more
than one partition SORT BY
may return result that is partially ordered. This is different than
ORDER BY clause which guarantees a total order of the
output.
Syntax
SORT BY { expression [ sort_direction nulls_sort_oder ] } [, ...]
sort_direction
[ ASC | DEC ]
nulls_sort_order
[ NULLS FIRST | NULLS LAST ]
Parameters
-
An expression of any type used to establish a partition local order in which results are returned.
If the expression is a literal INT value it is interpreted as a column position in the select list.
sort_direction
Specifies the sort order for the sort by expression.
ASC
: The sort direction for this expression is ascending.DESC
: The sort order for this expression is descending.
If sort direction is not explicitly specified, then by default rows are sorted ascending.
nulls_sort_order
Optionally specifies whether NULL values are returned before/after non-NULL values. If
null_sort_order
is not specified, then NULLs sort first if sort order isASC
and NULLS sort last if sort order isDESC
.NULLS FIRST
: NULL values are returned first regardless of the sort order.NULLS LAST
: NULL values are returned last regardless of the sort order.
When specifying more than one expression sorting occurs left to right. All rows within the partition are sorted by the first expression. If there are duplicate values for the first expression the second expression is used to resolve order within the group of duplicates and so on. The resulting order not deterministic if there are duplicate values across all order by expressions.
Examples
> CREATE TEMP VIEW person (zip_code, name, age)
AS VALUES (94588, 'Zen Hui', 50),
(94588, 'Dan Li', 18),
(94588, 'Anil K', 27),
(94588, 'John V', NULL),
(94511, 'David K', 42),
(94511, 'Aryan B.', 18),
(94511, 'Lalit B.', NULL);
-- Use `REPARTITION` hint to partition the data by `zip_code` to
-- examine the `SORT BY` behavior. This is used in rest of the
-- examples.
-- Sort rows by `name` within each partition in ascending manner
> SELECT /*+ REPARTITION(zip_code) */ name, age, zip_code FROM person
SORT BY name;
Anil K 27 94588
Dan Li 18 94588
John V NULL 94588
Zen Hui 50 94588
Aryan B. 18 94511
David K 42 94511
Lalit B. NULL 94511
-- Sort rows within each partition using column position.
> SELECT /*+ REPARTITION(zip_code) */ name, age, zip_code FROM person
SORT BY 1;
Anil K 27 94588
Dan Li 18 94588
John V null 94588
Zen Hui 50 94588
Aryan B. 18 94511
David K 42 94511
Lalit B. null 94511
-- Sort rows within partition in ascending manner keeping null values to be last.
> SELECT /*+ REPARTITION(zip_code) */ age, name, zip_code FROM person
SORT BY age NULLS LAST;
18 Dan Li 94588
27 Anil K 94588
50 Zen Hui 94588
NULL John V 94588
18 Aryan B. 94511
42 David K 94511
NULL Lalit B. 94511
-- Sort rows by age within each partition in descending manner, which defaults to NULL LAST.
> SELECT /*+ REPARTITION(zip_code) */ age, name, zip_code FROM person
SORT BY age DESC;
50 Zen Hui 94588
27 Anil K 94588
18 Dan Li 94588
NULL John V 94588
42 David K 94511
18 Aryan B. 94511
NULL Lalit B. 94511
-- Sort rows by age within each partition in descending manner keeping null values to be first.
> SELECT /*+ REPARTITION(zip_code) */ age, name, zip_code FROM person
SORT BY age DESC NULLS FIRST;
NULL John V 94588
50 Zen Hui 94588
27 Anil K 94588
18 Dan Li 94588
NULL Lalit B. 94511
42 David K 94511
18 Aryan B. 94511
-- Sort rows within each partition based on more than one column with each column having
-- different sort direction.
> SELECT /*+ REPARTITION(zip_code) */ name, age, zip_code FROM person
SORT BY name ASC, age DESC;
Anil K 27 94588
Dan Li 18 94588
John V null 94588
Zen Hui 50 94588
Aryan B. 18 94511
David K 42 94511
Lalit B. null 94511