The ORDER BY clause orders the objects returned by the query.

The ASC keyword (the default) specifies ascending order, and the DESC keyword indicates descending order.

Example

The Entity

@Entity
public class Employee {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue
    private long id;
    private String name;
    private int salary;
    private String dept;
    .............
}

Using Query

public class ExampleMain {
    private static EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory =
            Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("example-unit");

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            persistEmployees();
            findEmployees();
        } finally {
            entityManagerFactory.close();
        }
    }

    public static void persistEmployees() {
        Employee employee1 = Employee.create("Diana", "IT", 3000);
        Employee employee2 = Employee.create("Rose", "Admin", 4000);
        Employee employee3 = Employee.create("Denise", "IT", 1500);
        EntityManager em = entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager();
        em.getTransaction().begin();
        em.persist(employee1);
        em.persist(employee2);
        em.persist(employee3);
        em.getTransaction().commit();
        em.close();
    }

    private static void findEmployees() {
        EntityManager em = entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager();
        Query query = em.createQuery("SELECT e FROM Employee e ORDER BY e.salary");
        List<Employee> resultList = query.getResultList();
        resultList.forEach(System.out::println);
        em.close();
    }
}

Employee{id=3, name='Denise', salary=1500, dept='IT'}
Employee{id=1, name='Diana', salary=3000, dept='IT'}
Employee{id=2, name='Rose', salary=4000, dept='Admin'}

DESC Example

public class ExampleMain2 {
    private static EntityManagerFactory entityManagerFactory =
            Persistence.createEntityManagerFactory("example-unit");

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            persistEmployees();
            findEmployees();
        } finally {
            entityManagerFactory.close();
        }
    }

    public static void persistEmployees() {
        Employee employee1 = Employee.create("Diana", "IT", 3000);
        Employee employee2 = Employee.create("Rose", "Admin", 4000);
        Employee employee3 = Employee.create("Denise", "IT", 1500);
        EntityManager em = entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager();
        em.getTransaction().begin();
        em.persist(employee1);
        em.persist(employee2);
        em.persist(employee3);
        em.getTransaction().commit();
        em.close();
    }

    private static void findEmployees() {
        EntityManager em = entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager();
        Query query = em.createQuery("SELECT e FROM Employee e ORDER BY e.salary DESC");
        List<Employee> resultList = query.getResultList();
        resultList.forEach(System.out::println);
        em.close();
    }
}

Employee{id=2, name='Rose', salary=4000, dept='Admin'}
Employee{id=1, name='Diana', salary=3000, dept='IT'}
Employee{id=3, name='Denise', salary=1500, dept='IT'}

Example Project

Dependencies and Technologies Used:

• h2 1.4.197: H2 Database Engine.
• hibernate-core 5.2.13.Final: The core O/RM functionality as provided by Hibernate.
  Implements javax.persistence:javax.persistence-api version 2.1
• JDK 1.8
• Maven 3.3.9