Order of rows in select statement

Question

Hi,

I have a doubt, I have a table which has following rows and column
Alpha1    Numer1
A    1
B    2
A    2
C    1
C    2
B    1

If i query  select * from tabl1 order by Numer1
if Results are
Alpha1    Numer1
A    1
C    1
B    1
B    2
A    2
C    2

if i run the same query again, will the order of Alpha1 column remain same or it may differ like below(i haven't ordered alpha1 column i have ordered only Numer1 column)

Alpha1    Numer1
A    1
B    1
C    1
A    2
B    2
C    2

Please clarify?

Exact senario, I have asp application, which has report and export to excel, the order of rows of the report and export to excel differs for the same query. The query has inner join also.

Answer 1

It may differ for Alpha1. However, Number1 would be always in order.

In SQL server, we cant ensure the order of data unless it has been provided by "order by" of columns.

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Answer 2

Latheesh is right. that there is no guarrantee for SQl server to return back the value in a particular order unless that you specifically use the Order By clause.

so to guarantee the sort order as what you want, you need to add the second or third column to Order by for example like:

select * from tabl1 order by Numer1, Alpja1

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