sort operator

Learn how to use the sort operator to sort the rows of the input table by one or more columns.

Sorts the rows of the input table into order by one or more columns.

Syntax

T | sort by column [asc | desc] [nulls first | nulls last] [, …]

Parameters

NameTypeRequiredDescription
Tstring✔️The tabular input to sort.
columnscalar✔️The column of T by which to sort. The type of the column values must be numeric, date, time or string.
asc or descstringasc sorts into ascending order, low to high. Default is desc, high to low.
nulls first or nulls laststringnulls first will place the null values at the beginning and nulls last will place the null values at the end. Default for asc is nulls first. Default for desc is nulls last.

Returns

A copy of the input table sorted in either ascending or descending order based on the provided column.

Using special floating-point values

When the input table contains the special values null, NaN, -inf and +inf, the order will be as follows:

ValueAscendingDescending
Nulls firstnull,NaN,-inf,-5,0,5,+infnull,NaN,+inf,5,0,-5
Nulls last-inf,-5,0,+inf,NaN,null+inf,5,0,-5,NaN,null

Example

The following example shows storm events by state in alphabetical order with the most recent storms in each state appearing first.

StormEvents
| sort by State asc, StartTime desc

Output

This table only shows the top 10 query results.

StartTimeStateEventType…
2007-12-28T12:10:00ZALABAMAHail…
2007-12-28T04:30:00ZALABAMAHail…
2007-12-28T04:16:00ZALABAMAHail…
2007-12-28T04:15:00ZALABAMAHail…
2007-12-28T04:13:00ZALABAMAHail…
2007-12-21T14:30:00ZALABAMAStrong Wind…
2007-12-20T18:15:00ZALABAMAStrong Wind…
2007-12-20T18:00:00ZALABAMAStrong Wind…
2007-12-20T18:00:00ZALABAMAStrong Wind…
2007-12-20T17:45:00ZALABAMAStrong Wind…
2007-12-20T17:45:00ZALABAMAStrong Wind…