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

Try

ORDER BY CONCAT(b_name, l_name)

or (if your fields are NULL when EMPTY)

ORDER BY COALESCE(b_name, l_name)