How can I limit the number of rows in my output ( NOT rownum )

HI,

We are using Oracle 8.1.7 and weblogic as the application server.

We are trying to find a way that if a user will try to execute a select that is very heavy and can bring milions of records - he will get an error message "too heavy" - or something similar

Is something like that possible ?

I don't wat to select count(*) before - because it is really executing the statement twice..
I cannot use rownum because I need the order by and in line views - after all - select ALL the records in the view

I want a way to know when Oracle is coming to an X number of rows - and terminate the select with an error

Orna Received on Thu Oct 25 2001 - 18:57:00 CEST