How to get data in descending order? - pagination

Question

I've read everything I can find on this website, but haven't been able to find an answer.
I have a pagination that displays in ascending order. I have noticed that when I enter a new file to my database, they don't show up first in the pagination result. Any help would be appreciated. Here is my pagination script:
<?php
include('connect.php');
$tableName="resumesearch";
$targetpage = "searchresumes.php";
$limit = 5;
$query = "SELECT COUNT(*) as num FROM $tableName";
$total_pages = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query($query));
$total_pages = $total_pages[num];
$stages = 3;
$page = mysql_escape_string($_GET['page']);
if($page){
$start = ($page - 1) * $limit;
}else{
$start = 0;
}
// Get page data
$query1 = "SELECT * FROM $tableName LIMIT $start, $limit";
$result = mysql_query($query1);
// Initial page num setup
if ($page == 0){$page = 1;}
$prev = $page - 1;
$next = $page + 1;
$lastpage = ceil($total_pages/$limit);
$LastPagem1 = $lastpage - 1;
$paginate = '';
if($lastpage > 1)
{
$paginate .= "<div class='paginate'>";
// Previous
if ($page > 1){
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$prev'>previous</a>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<span class='disabled'>previous</span>"; }
// Pages
if ($lastpage < 7 + ($stages * 2)) // Not enough pages to breaking it up
{
for ($counter = 1; $counter <= $lastpage; $counter++)
{
if ($counter == $page){
$paginate.= "<span class='current'>$counter</span>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$counter'>$counter</a>";}
}
}
elseif($lastpage > 5 + ($stages * 2)) // Enough pages to hide a few?
{
// Beginning only hide later pages
if($page < 1 + ($stages * 2))
{
for ($counter = 1; $counter < 4 + ($stages * 2); $counter++)
{
if ($counter == $page){
$paginate.= "<span class='current'>$counter</span>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$counter'>$counter</a>";}
}
$paginate.= "...";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$LastPagem1'>$LastPagem1</a>";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$lastpage'>$lastpage</a>";
}
// Middle hide some front and some back
elseif($lastpage - ($stages * 2) > $page && $page > ($stages * 2))
{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=1'>1</a>";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=2'>2</a>";
$paginate.= "...";
for ($counter = $page - $stages; $counter <= $page + $stages; $counter++)
{
if ($counter == $page){
$paginate.= "<span class='current'>$counter</span>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$counter'>$counter</a>";}
}
$paginate.= "...";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$LastPagem1'>$LastPagem1</a>";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$lastpage'>$lastpage</a>";
}
// End only hide early pages
else
{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=1'>1</a>";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=2'>2</a>";
$paginate.= "...";
for ($counter = $lastpage - (2 + ($stages * 2)); $counter <= $lastpage; $counter++)
{
if ($counter == $page){
$paginate.= "<span class='current'>$counter</span>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage? page=$counter'>$counter</a>";}
}
}
}
// Next
if ($page < $counter - 1){
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$next'>next</a>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<span class='disabled'>next</span>";
}
$paginate.= "</div>";
}
echo $total_pages.' Results';
// pagination
echo $paginate;
?>

Answer 1

The ordering of a query without an ORDER BY is unspecified.
Thus, ORDER BY (DESC) in the query is required - this means that there must be a column or set of columns that define a stable ordering. For instance, imagine is the query is updated to:
SELECT * FROM $tableName
ORDER BY createdAt DESC, id ASC
LIMIT $start, $limit
Here I conjecture that there is an createdAt column that represents the dateitem an item was added. The addition of the ordering over the id (presumably an auto-increment PK) is to ensure query stability in the case where multiple createdAt columns have the same value, which might be the case in highly concurrent or mass-insert situations.
Note that I do not simply use ORDER BY id DESC because even though id is (presumed to be) an auto-increment column it does not represent the same stable ordering of information. Databases are about information.
In addition,
MySQL has a clever way of returning the "total count" with a limit and;
Consider updating the code to use mysqli/PDO and prepared statements.