Does SELECT return in order?

Does ORDER BY happen after SELECT?

ORDER BY is evaluated before the SELECT, as the ordering changes the results returned.

Does order matter in SQL SELECT?

To put it simply: yes, it does. The order of the columns matters when it comes to improving performance of queries in your SQL Server.

What does a SELECT query return?

The SQL SELECT statement returns a result set of records, from one or more tables. A SELECT statement retrieves zero or more rows from one or more database tables or database views. In most applications, SELECT is the most commonly used data manipulation language (DML) command.

Does SQL return in order?

By default, SELECT returns rows in no particular order. The ORDER BY clause returns the rows in a given sort order. Rows can be returned in ascending or descending sort order.