03 Sort and limit

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Goal

Show the name and price of the three most expensive products, most expensive first.

Without ORDER BY, a database returns rows in whatever order is convenient for it — usually, but not reliably, the order they were inserted. If order matters, say so.

ORDER BY price sorts ascending (smallest first). ORDER BY price DESC sorts descending. LIMIT 3 stops after three rows.

Together they answer every "top N" question: the newest five orders, the three cheapest flights, the ten slowest pages.

Try it

Find the three most expensive products. Order matters here, so the goal checks it.

Go to the terminal

Hint

ORDER BY price DESC sorts highest first; LIMIT 3 keeps the first three.

Show a solution

SELECT name, price FROM products ORDER BY price DESC LIMIT 3;

This interactive environment needs JavaScript. Everything you need to read is on this page, and the solution works the same way for real.

SQL

Starting SQL…