My SQL statement is not returning my query back in alphabetical order

Question

I am trying to run a query on a database table and have it a return the results in alphabetical order, however when I run the following statement it returns everything in the same manner that it appears in the database. I am doing an order by the officegroup which from what I understand it should return the result order in alphabetical order.

SELECT 
    OfficeGroupID, OfficeGroup 
FROM 
    tblofficegroup 
INNER JOIN 
    tblRegion ON tblOfficeGroup.RegionID = tblRegion.RegionID 
WHERE 
    ISNULL(tblofficegroup.Hide, 0) = 0
    AND ISNULL(tblRegion.Hide, 0) = 0
    AND OfficeGroupID <> 18 --'Not Mapped'
ORDER BY 
    OfficeGroup  -- this should return it in alphabetical order but nogame.
                 -- I also tried passing the ASC command but neither worked 

This is the table from the database, I am displaying the query on a webpage and it shows in the same order which is appears on in the table. I used ASC but no luck this is a string type (varchar(32)).

This is the function that makes the query for my webpage, I don't see anything wrong with it:

public static List<Market> GetMarketGroup()
{
    List<Market> regionList = new List<Market>();

    using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(_constring))
    {
        StringBuilder sqlCommandBuilderTxt = new StringBuilder();

        sqlCommandBuilderTxt.Append("SELECT OfficeGroupID,OfficeGroup FROM tblofficegroup INNER JOIN tblRegion ON tblOfficeGroup.RegionID = tblRegion.RegionID WHERE ISNULL(tblofficegroup.Hide, 0) = 0 AND ISNULL(tblRegion.Hide, 0) = 0 AND OfficeGroupID <> 18 --'Not Mapped' ORDER BY OfficeGroup ASC ");

        SqlCommand sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(sqlCommandBuilderTxt.ToString(), connection);

        try
        {
            connection.Open();
            SqlDataReader reader = sqlCommand.ExecuteReader();

            while (reader.Read())
            {
                try
                {
                    Market market = new Market();// instance
                    market.MarketID = reader.GetInt32(0);
                    market.MarketGroup = reader.GetString(1);

                    regionList.Add(market);
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    log.Error(ex);
                }
            }

            reader.Close();
            connection.Close();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            log.Error(ex);
        }
    }

    return regionList;
}

Answer 1

Be carefull with the tool (client) you use to execute the query. you are using -- to comment a part of your statement, your client may wrap your query into a single line and then ignore the order by clause

consider using an other style of comment: /* comment here */