Sorting Large table, small select set

I have a database for which a certain recordset contains 20,000 records. I am
displaying 20 or so records at a time to the user. These records need to be displayed
in a sorted manner (ie ORDER by DATE,ACCTNUM).

I had been using something like SELECT X From Y Where Rownum < 20 ORDER by DATE,ACCTNUM; only to realize that the ORDER by only works on the 20 rows.

What I really want is to be able to return the 1st 20 records, then the next 20 records and so on.

The only way I can come up with to do this is to read the entire recordset of 20,000 records and
scroll through and pick up the ones I want.

This can't be the optimum way to do this. Isn't there some way to enforce a sorting or order on the
table either when selecting records, or perhaps even when initially inserting the records? This seems
like something that would be required in many applications.

I am reading records through ADO/Active Server pages and displaying them to the user through
the browser interface.

Any comments appreciated. Received on Thu Mar 11 1999 - 22:51:32 CST