How can the ORDER BY clause in a SQL query be used to sort data in a specific order for PHP applications?

The ORDER BY clause in a SQL query can be used to sort data in a specific order for PHP applications by specifying the column(s) to sort by and the direction (ASC for ascending or DESC for descending). This allows you to retrieve data from the database in the desired order, making it easier to display or process the information in your PHP application.

// Connect to the database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "database";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

// SQL query with ORDER BY clause
$sql = "SELECT * FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name ASC";

$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    // Output data of each row
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo "Column Name: " . $row["column_name"]. "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}

$conn->close();