Sorting a MySQL query with ORDER BY or with PHP sort functions

Question

I have a query that I want to sort alphabetically, but the trick is that I want the sorting to treat two columns equally. For instance, if the first row of first_col<

Answer 1

If your tables are very similar you can do this

In my case I have a table test_a with 2 columns id and name

(SELECT * FROM test_a a1) 
UNION ALL 
(SELECT * FROM test_a a2) 
ORDER BY name DESC