Question

I like being able to go to phpmyadmin and seeing my rows ordered.
Is there an easy way to insert a row into the correct order by it’s primary key?

Answer 1

There is no order you can rely on.

Unless you specify ORDER BY, there are no guarantees about what rows
will be returned first.

But in practice, the order will typically match the clustered index
order, and will not vary between calls. Don’t rely on this behaviour.

Does MySQL’s LIMIT keyword guarantee order of returned data?

There is no default sort order. Even if the table has a clustered
index, you are not guaranteed to get the results in that order. You
must use an order by clause if you want a specific order.

SQL best practice to deal with default sort order

Just insert the data; tables are not fundamentally ordered. The only ordering of table results occurs when you define it yourself in your select statement.

Is it possible to insert data into the mid section of a table using the INSERT command?

You can’t. There is no such thing.

To be precise: in MyISAM engine, current order is whatever the order
was when the last ALTER TABLE ORDER BY was performed, modified by all
the deletions and insertions since.

InnoDB just sorts the tables as it wishes.

view current table order

However be aware of the advice from another poster above: the order in
which rows are returned without an ORDER BY clause is arbitrary and
may change without notification. It would be best to amend your table
if at all possible.

Reverse the “natural order” of a MySQL table without ORDER BY?

…. and maaany more.