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-- Sort books by checkout date (newest first)
SELECT book_title, checkout_date
FROM book_checkouts
ORDER BY checkout_date DESC;

-- Show top 2 most recent checkouts
SELECT book_title, checkout_date
FROM book_checkouts
ORDER BY checkout_date DESC
LIMIT 2;

-- Show books with the earliest checkout dates
SELECT book_title, checkout_date
FROM book_checkouts
ORDER BY checkout_date ASC;

# ORDER BY and LIMIT

When querying data, you may want to *sort the results* or *limit how many rows are returned*. SQL provides 2 powerful tools for this: `ORDER BY` and `LIMIT`.

 

## ORDER BY

The `ORDER BY` clause is used to **sort results** by one or more columns, in ascending or descending order.

```sql title="Sort books by checkout date"
SELECT title, checkout_date
FROM book_checkouts
ORDER BY checkout_date DESC;
```

* `ASC` (ascending) is the default: earliest to latest
* `DESC` (descending) sorts from newest to oldest

 

## LIMIT

The `LIMIT` clause is used to **restrict how many rows** are returned in the result set.

```sql title="Limit results to the 3 most recent checkouts"
SELECT title, checkout_date
FROM book_checkouts
ORDER BY checkout_date DESC
LIMIT 3;
```

This query shows only the 3 most recently checked-out books.

 

## Combining ORDER BY and LIMIT

These two clauses are often combined to answer real questions like:

* Who borrowed the most books?
* What were the last 5 books checked out?
* Show the top 2 most borrowed books.

 

## When do I use ORDER BY and LIMIT?

You can use `ORDER BY` and `LIMIT` to:

* View only the top N results
* Sort data for reports or dashboards
* Power features like search ranking or pagination

 

## What's Next?

In the next lesson, you'll learn how to **remove duplicates** and assign **custom column names** using `DISTINCT` and `AS`.

The query sorts members by the number of books borrowed (from highest to lowest) and returns only the top 2.

ORDER BY and LIMIT

ORDER BY

LIMIT

Combining ORDER BY and LIMIT

When do I use ORDER BY and LIMIT?

What's Next?

What does the following query do?