MySQL : Order by 2 fields

Question

Suppose I have a list of products, and each has a price. I wish to show the most expensive product, and if 2 products or more tie, then I wish to order by their name. Doing this doesn't seem to produce the results I want:

ORDER BY cost DESC, product_name

What is the syntax which I am looking for?

Answer 1

where's the problem?

ORDER BY cost DESC, product_name 

will order by cost desc and then by product_name asc. What type of unexpected behaviour are you experiencing?

Answer 2

This works fine:

use test;

create table products (cost decimal(15,2), product_name varchar(50));

insert into products values (14.50, 'b product');
insert into products values (14.50, 'a product');
insert into products values (15.50, 'c product');

select * from products order by cost desc, product_name

Returns:

15.50, 'c product'
14.50, 'a product'
14.50, 'b product'