SQL TutorialLesson 14Free preview

SQL Select Top

This lesson is part of SQL · All levels

Summary

SELECT TOP limits the number of lines the query returns, usually combined with ORDER BY to take the top score. Note that TOP is a special syntax of SQL Server and MS Access; in MySQL the used is the LIMIT clause. The goal is the same, which is to take just a few lines of results.

Key points

TOP limits the number of result lines; in MySQL use LIMIT.
MySQL form: SELECT... ORDER BY... LIMIT n;
LIMIT also supports offsets, for example LIMIT 5 OFFSET 10 for pagination.
TOP or LIMIT without ORDER BY does not guarantee which line is taken.
The TOP percent form is only in SQL Server, not in MySQL.

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