[RESOLVED] Get most recent 400 records but sort them alphabetically

[MattG]

Hi,

I'm trying to get the 400 most recently added records in a table but I want them ordered alphabetically rather than by their id number. I tried a secondary field in the order by statement but it made no difference. Here's what I tried:

SELECT id, name FROM people ORDER BY id DESC, name ASC LIMIT 400;

However this didn't work, it correctly selects the most recent 400 but still orders them by their id number not name. I'm guessing I'm missing something extremely simple but after a search on the internet and here I couldn't find the solution so thought I'd ask to see if anyone could help.

Thanks

[johanafm]

The order by first order by the first argument, then the second etc. This means that all records having id = 1 will be sorted in ascending order on name, all records with id 2 will be sorted in ascending order on name etc. But since there is only one record per id, there is no difference with or without name ASC.
Simplest way is probably with a nested query

SELECT *
FROM (SELECT id, name FROM people ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 400) as t
ORDER BY name ASC

[MattG]

Thank you that worked perfectly!