ASCENDING              The default sorting order. Oracle Rdb sorts
                           the records in ascending order ("A"
                           precedes "B", 1 precedes 2, and so on).
                           Missing values appear as the last items
                           in this list of sorted values. You can
                           abbreviate the ASCENDING keyword to ASC.

    DESCENDING             Oracle Rdb sorts the records in descending
                           order ("A" follows "B", 1 follows 2, and
                           so on). Missing values appear as the first
                           items in this list of sorted values. You
                           can abbreviate the DESCENDING keyword to
                           DESC.

    db-field               A database field value expression. A
                           database field value expression is a field
                           name qualified with a context variable.
                           For more information see the entry on the
                           Database Field value expression.