Displaying only a list of records in ASC order with MySQL

To display a list of records in a specific order, you need to set conditions and use ORDER BY. For this, use ORDER BY CASE statement. Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable2039
   -> (
   -> Name varchar(20)
   -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.62 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable2039 values('John Doe');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)

mysql> insert into DemoTable2039 values('John Smith');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.08 sec)

mysql> insert into DemoTable2039 values('Chris Brown');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.07 sec)

mysql> insert into DemoTable2039 values('Adam Smith');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.10 sec)

mysql> insert into DemoTable2039 values('David Miller');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.09 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from DemoTable2039;

This will produce the following output −

+--------------+
| Name         |
+--------------+
| John Doe     |
| John Smith   |
| Chris Brown  |
| Adam Smith   |
| David Miller |
+--------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query to display a specific list of records in ASC order −

mysql> select *from DemoTable2039
   -> order by
   -> case when Name like '%Smith%' then 101
   -> else
   -> 100
   -> end,
   -> Name;

This will produce the following output −

+--------------+
| Name         |
+--------------+
| Chris Brown  |
| David Miller |
| John Doe     |
| Adam Smith   |
| John Smith   |
+--------------+
5 rows in set (0.37 sec)