ORDER BY DESC statement is used to sort data in result-set in descending order. ORDER BY DESC statement is used in SELECT statement.

SELECT column1, column2, …, columnN 
FROM table_name
[ WHERE condition ] 
ORDER BY column_name DESC; 

• column1, column2, …, columnN - Specifies the column names from table.
• table_name – Specifies the name of the table.
• column_name - Specifies the column used to perform ORDER BY DESC operation.

Let us consider below table(s) as an example table(s) to frame the SQL query for getting the desired results.

Scenario – Fetch rows in descending order of single column.

Requirement – Fetch emp_name, manager_id of all employees from employee_details table in descending order of manager_id. The query was as follows –

SELECT emp_name, manager_id FROM employee_details ORDER BY 
manager_id DESC; 

By executing above query, we can get results as shown below –

Scenario – Fetch rows by sorting multiple rows in descending order.

Requirement – Fetch all details of employees whose dept_id is 2000 and descending order of date_of_hire, salary. The query was as follows –

SELECT * FROM employee_details 
WHERE dept_id = 2000 ORDER BY salary DESC, date_of_hire DESC; 

By executing above query, we can get results as shown below –

Scenario – Fetch rows in ascending order of a column and descending order of another column.

Requirement – Fetch emp_name, manager_id, designation of all employees from employee_details table in ascending order of manager_id and descending order of designation. The query was as follows –

SELECT emp_name, manager_id, designation FROM employee_details 
 ORDER BY manager_id, designation DESC; 

By executing above query, we can get results as shown below –