# Sort criteria

A sort criteria defines the AQL collation sequence. The
sort is invoked by the by, by-dsnd, by-exp, or by-exp-dsnd modifiers
in a left-to-right order to determine the order in which items are
processed by AQL. There is no limit to the number of sort keys within
an AQL sentence.

## Example(s)

This example has one sort key.
It produces a listing of the entity item-ID and `name` attribute sorted by the value of the first name in each entity item.

```
list entity by name name
```
This example has three sort keys. First, the data in entity
is sorted by ascending `state` sequence, then within `state` by ascending `city` sequence, and within `city` by ascending `name`. The attributes
listed in the file's macro or output-macro display.

```
list entity by state by city by name
```
This example reverses the normal sort order and sorts
the highest values to the top of the list. This is useful for circumstances
such as determining who owes you the most money.

```
list invoices by-dsnd amount.due
```

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Source: https://d3codex.com/access/sort-criteria/ - part of the D3Codex reference.