Django Query Set Order By (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 22 May, 2025

**order_by() method in Django QuerySets is used to **sort query results based on one or more fields, either in **ascending or **descending order. This helps display data sorted by criteria like salary, name, date, etc., directly from the database query.

In this article we will learn all about order_by method of QuesrySets by performing multiple operations over a dataset, for this we need to first create a model

Creating Model: EmployeeDetails

Assuming you have the following model defined in **models.py:

Python `

from django.db import models

class EmployeeDetails(models.Model): EmployeeId = models.AutoField(primary_key=True) EmployeeName = models.CharField(max_length=20) EmployeeDepartment = models.CharField(max_length=20, blank=True, null=True) Country = models.CharField(max_length=20, blank=True, null=True) Salary = models.IntegerField(blank=True)

def __str__(self):
    return self.EmployeeName

`

Make sure you have migrated this model:

python manage.py makemigrations

python manage.py migrate

**Add some sample data via the Django admin or shell before testing.

Snapshot of Database after adding some dummy entries

Using order_by() in the Django Shell

Open the Django shell:

python manage.py shell

1. Sort Employees in Ascending Order by Salary

Python `

from yourapp.models import EmployeeDetails

Retrieve all employees ordered by Salary (lowest first)

employees = EmployeeDetails.objects.all().order_by('Salary') for emp in employees: print(emp.EmployeeName, emp.Salary)

`

This will display employees starting from the lowest salary:

Snapshot of shell

2. Sort Employees by Salary in Descending Order

Python `

Using '-' prefix to sort descending by Salary

employees = EmployeeDetails.objects.all().order_by('-Salary') for emp in employees: print(emp.EmployeeName, emp.Salary)

`

The '**-' before the field name **reverses the order, so the highest salaries appear first:

Snapshot of shell

3. Alternative Descending Order Approaches (Not Recommended)

Python `

Approach 1: Reverse the QuerySet after ascending order

employees = EmployeeDetails.objects.all().order_by('Salary').reverse()

Approach 2: Using Python list slicing (less efficient)

employees = list(EmployeeDetails.objects.all().order_by('Salary'))[::-1]

for emp in employees: print(emp.EmployeeName, emp.Salary)

`

While these work, using ****'-Salary'** in **order_by() is faster and preferred:

Snapshot of shell

4. Sort by Multiple Fields

Python `

Order first by Salary ascending, then by EmployeeName ascending

employees = EmployeeDetails.objects.all().order_by('Salary', 'EmployeeName') for emp in employees: print(emp.EmployeeName, emp.Salary)

`

Employees are sorted by salary, when salaries are equal, they are sorted alphabetically by name:

Snapshot of shell

Unfortunately, in the above example, our database have no entries with same salaries and thats why the output looks like a regular salary based sorted list