How to order records and fetch some using MySQL LIMIT?

Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable679(FirstName varchar(100));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.44 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable679 values('John');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable679 values('Chris');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.11 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable679 values('David');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.19 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable679 values('Bob');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.14 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable679 values('Mike');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.11 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable679 values('Sam');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable679 values('Robert');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from DemoTable679;

This will produce the following output −

+-----------+
| FirstName |
+-----------+
| John      |
| Chris     |
| David     |
| Bob       |
| Mike      |
| Sam       |
| Robert    |
+-----------+
7 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to select the last n rows in MySQL. Here, we are first ordering it in ASC and displaying the first 4 records −

mysql> select * from DemoTable679 order by FirstName Limit 0,4;

This will produce the following output −

+-----------+
| FirstName |
+-----------+
| Bob       |
| Chris     |
| David     |
| John      |
+-----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)