Order by meta values

by

You can do this by just looking for release_date_db:

function plugin_name_get_posts() {
    global $wpdb;
$the_posts = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts, $wpdb->postmeta WHERE $wpdb->posts.ID = $wpdb->postmeta.post_id AND meta_key = 'release_date_db' AND meta_value >= 20120000 AND meta_value <= 20121231 ORDER BY meta_value ASC;", ARRAY_A );
 }