From: DNP Subject: Re: Limiting the number of returned rows with Oracle Date: 2000/06/06 Message-ID: <393D4629.62A1@btinternet.com>#1/1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <393C7E63.345F9DE8@tanyelcp650.brightware.com> <9W2%4.10$574.1171@newreader.ukcore.bt.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: --- Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: High.Flight@btinternet.com Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle.server Oracle recommend using a PL/SQL module, which selectively fetches the chosen number of 'rows' from a cursor declared within PL/SQL. It's not as simple as some RDBMSes which have a TOP keyword which is useable in SQL natively. It all boils down to the relational aspect of Oracle's tuples i.e. Oracle (at a logical level) doesn't think in rows at all - only tuples (depending on your selection criteria). Of course it uses ROWIDs etc. to go and fetch rows physically. David P. OCP (DBA) MCP (TCP/IP) Glasgow, Scotland. ======================================================================