Re: First 20 records from a select, after ordering

From: -=< a q u a b u b b l e >=- <aquabubble_at_Remove.No.Parma.Ham.Remove.geocities.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1999 11:39:41 +0100
Message-ID: <7vehtk$qe6$1@news5.svr.pol.co.uk>

Billy Collins <billy_collins_at_my-deja.com> wrote in message news:7vdhmg$mr4$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com...
> Hi,
>
> Is there a way for me to retrieve only the first 20 rows from oracle
> AFTER doing an ORDER BY?
>
> The rownum is executed while the SELECT is executing, as discussed in a
> recent thread, and this gets distorted after sorting is done. I wish to
> retrieve only the first 20 records after this sorting..
>
> SELECT FIRST 20 <column_name> FROM <tablename> ORDER BY <column_name>

If you don't want to use PL/SQL then you could do something like this:

SELECT *

  FROM (SELECT <columns>
          FROM <tablename>
      ORDER BY <column>)

 WHERE rownum < 21

This would do your job. HTH Received on Sat Oct 30 1999 - 05:39:41 CDT