Simple SQL question

I don't know much about SQL, and maybe this is a stupid question, but my problem is the following:

How in SQL can I retrieve a record (just one) directly prior or next to a given record in accordance with the primary key.

So, if in the database I have the following names:

...
...

John
Peter
Richard
...
...

and I know that Peter is an existing record, how do I get the names just before and just after Peter.

To retrieve the next record, I issue the following query: SELECT NAME from NAMES where NAME > 'Peter' and rownum < 2

If I try to retrieve the previous name using: SELECT NAME from NAMES where NAME < 'Peter' and rownum < 2 I get the very first name in the database, even if I add an ORDER BY NAME DESC. (No surprises here).

I definitely don't want to run through the whole database to get the previous name, and I'm sure there should be an easy way to do it.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
David. e-mail : dhoogvor_at_huminf.nl   Received on Fri Jun 02 1995 - 00:00:00 CEST