Sorting Data
As you learned in the last lesson, the following SQL statement returns a single column from a database table. But look at the output. The data appears to be displayed in no particular order at all.
SELECT prod_name FROM Products;
prod_name -------------------- Fish bean bag toy Bird bean bag toy Rabbit bean bag toy 8 inch teddy bear 12 inch teddy bear 18 inch teddy bear Raggedy Ann
Actually, the retrieved data is not displayed in a mere random order. If left unsorted, data will be displayed in the order in which it appears in the underlying tables. This could be the order in which the data was added to the tables initially. However, if data was subsequently updated or deleted, the order will be affected by how the DBMS reuses ...
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