Multiple level ordering

Question

I have a table with some records with fields like name, rating etc.

I first want to sort based on rating limiting results to 20 and then on this resultset want to furthe

Answer 1

This query should do the trick:

SELECT * FROM (SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY rating DESC LIMIT 20) ORDER BY name

Answer 2

You could use e.g. ORDER BY rating DESC, name ASC to sort by rating and then, if the ratings are equal, by name.