How to implement LIMIT with SQL Server? [duplicate]

Question

I have this query with MySQL:

select * from table1 LIMIT 10,20

How can I do this with SQL Server?

Alto

Since this question was asked first, wouldn't the other question be the duplicate? – Impeachment

See: Should I flag a question as duplicate if it has received better answers? – Kolo

@Alto since 2012 the accepted answer is wrong and extremely inefficient – Hohenlohe

Answer 1

Starting SQL SERVER 2005, you can do this...

USE AdventureWorks;
GO
WITH OrderedOrders AS
(
    SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderDate,
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY OrderDate) AS 'RowNumber'
    FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader 
) 
SELECT * 
FROM OrderedOrders 
WHERE RowNumber BETWEEN 10 AND 20;

or something like this for 2000 and below versions...

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM (SELECT TOP 20 FROM Table ORDER BY Id) ORDER BY Id DESC

Surfactant

The 2nd query fails if you have e.g. 14 rows in the table. It gives you rows 5 through 14, but you want rows 11 through 14. In general, it fails for the last "page" of a result, unless the total rows are a multiple of that "page" size. – Friede

Such a simple thing needs to be made so difficult by MS yet again! – Alisaalisan

Here's what worked for me in SQL Server Management Studio 2017: SELECT * FROM [dbo].<insert tableName here> WHERE @@ROWCOUNT BETWEEN <insert min here> and <insert max here> – Kappel

Just Fantastic, It's works like charm in MS SQL Server 2017 select Statement – Hydrodynamics

This is not a good answer for any of the current SQL Server versions. This will scan the entire table to calculate the ROW_NUMBER() before filtering. – Hohenlohe

Answer 2

Starting with SQL SERVER 2012, you can use the OFFSET FETCH Clause:

USE AdventureWorks;
GO
SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderDate
FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader 
ORDER BY SalesOrderID
    OFFSET 10 ROWS
    FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY;
GO

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188385(v=sql.110).aspx

This may not work correctly when the order by is not unique.

If the query is modified to ORDER BY OrderDate, the result set returned is not as expected.

Wineshop

Using 'with' only needs half the time to finish querying - see the answer of @Leon Tayson. I have no idea what Microsoft did to make it that slow. – Particle

Why is this not the accepted answer? We are in 2018 for crying out loud! – Dissemblance

@Dissemblance right. the accepted one still works. Let's just upvote this one to reflect the update. – Predator

@Predator works isn't the same as "good". That query will scan and lock the entire table – Hohenlohe

Answer 3

This is how I limit the results in MS SQL Server 2012:

SELECT * 
FROM table1
ORDER BY columnName
  OFFSET 10 ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY

NOTE: OFFSET can only be used with or in tandem to ORDER BY.

To explain the code line OFFSET xx ROWS FETCH NEXT yy ROW ONLY

The xx is the record/row number you want to start pulling from in the table, i.e: If there are 40 records in table 1, the code above will start pulling from row 10.

The yy is the number of records/rows you want to pull from the table.

To build on the previous example: If table 1 has 40 records and you began pulling from row 10 and grab the NEXT set of 10 (yy). That would mean, the code above will pull the records from table 1 starting at row 10 and ending at 20. Thus pulling rows 10 - 20.

Check out the link for more info on OFFSET

Emylee

Agree to this. For me I need to use this condition for my custom native query ,hence vanilla findBy clauses of JPA didn't helped much. This options worked as expected. Please see this page as best references I have seen: sqlservertutorial.net/sql-server-basics/sql-server-offset-fetch – Abscission

Answer 4

This is almost a duplicate of a question I asked in October: Emulate MySQL LIMIT clause in Microsoft SQL Server 2000

If you're using Microsoft SQL Server 2000, there is no good solution. Most people have to resort to capturing the result of the query in a temporary table with a IDENTITY primary key. Then query against the primary key column using a BETWEEN condition.

If you're using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or later, you have a ROW_NUMBER() function, so you can get the same result but avoid the temporary table.

SELECT t1.*
FROM (
    SELECT ROW_NUMBER OVER(ORDER BY id) AS row, t1.*
    FROM ( ...original SQL query... ) t1
) t2
WHERE t2.row BETWEEN @offset+1 AND @offset+@count;

You can also write this as a common table expression as shown in @Leon Tayson's answer.

Friede

ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY) gets points for being valid in ANSI SQL:2003, although support in DBMSs other than SQL Server is very spotty. And it's pretty clunky of course... – Sonasonant

@bobince: It turns out Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, IBM DB2, and PostgreSQL 8.4 all support window functions. That covers an huge majority of the SQL market. Support is only spotty if you use MySQL, SQLite or an old version of the DB's above. – Friede

Answer 5

SELECT TOP 10 * FROM table;

Is the same as

SELECT * FROM table LIMIT 0,10;

Here's an article about implementing Limit in MsSQL Its a nice read, specially the comments.

Tails

Thanks, but I want the record between 10 and 20, there's a way to do it? – Alto

This answer doesn't respond to the origin question, but it IS useful if someone like me needs to know how to get the first N results and got here via google etc... – Immuno

Answer 6

SELECT  *
FROM    (
        SELECT  TOP 20
                t.*, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY field1) AS rn
        FROM    table1 t
        ORDER BY
                field1
        ) t
WHERE   rn > 10

Freetown

Well, I just checked, SQL Server turned out to be smart enough to stop on ROW_NUMBER() conditions, if there is an indexed column in ORDER BY clause. – Freetown

Answer 7

Syntactically MySQL LIMIT query is something like this:

SELECT * FROM table LIMIT OFFSET, ROW_COUNT

This can be translated into Microsoft SQL Server like

SELECT * FROM 
(
    SELECT TOP #{OFFSET+ROW_COUNT} *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 1)) AS rnum 
    FROM table
) a
WHERE rnum > OFFSET

Now your query select * from table1 LIMIT 10,20 will be like this:

SELECT * FROM 
(
    SELECT TOP 30 *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 1)) AS rnum 
    FROM table1
) a
WHERE rnum > 10 

Loveliesbleeding

Answer 8

Easy way

MYSQL:

SELECT 'filds' FROM 'table' WHERE 'where' LIMIT 'offset','per_page'

MSSQL:

SELECT 'filds' FROM 'table' WHERE 'where' ORDER BY 'any' OFFSET 'offset' 
ROWS FETCH NEXT 'per_page' ROWS ONLY

ORDER BY is mandatory

Zel

this is the only correct answer – Fernand

Answer 9

This is one of the reasons I try to avoid using MS Server... but anyway. Sometimes you just don't have an option (yei! and I have to use an outdated version!!).

My suggestion is to create a virtual table:

From:

SELECT * FROM table

To:

CREATE VIEW v_table AS    
    SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY table_key) AS row,* FROM table

Then just query:

SELECT * FROM v_table WHERE row BETWEEN 10 AND 20

If fields are added, or removed, "row" is updated automatically.

The main problem with this option is that ORDER BY is fixed. So if you want a different order, you would have to create another view.

UPDATE

There is another problem with this approach: if you try to filter your data, it won't work as expected. For example, if you do:

SELECT * FROM v_table WHERE field = 'test' AND row BETWEEN 10 AND 20

WHERE becomes limited to those data which are in the rows between 10 and 20 (instead of searching the whole dataset and limiting the output).

Jaimeejaimes

Answer 10

In SQL there's no LIMIT keyword exists. If you only need a limited number of rows you should use a TOP keyword which is similar to a LIMIT.

Walkin

Answer 11

Must try. In below query, you can see group by, order by, Skip rows, and limit rows.

select emp_no , sum(salary_amount) from emp_salary
Group by emp_no 
ORDER BY emp_no 
OFFSET 5 ROWS       -- Skip first 5 
FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY; -- limit to retrieve next 10 row after skiping rows

Sulla

Answer 12

This is a multi step approach that will work in SQL2000.

-- Create a temp table to hold the data
CREATE TABLE #foo(rowID int identity(1, 1), myOtherColumns)

INSERT INTO #foo (myColumns) SELECT myData order By MyCriteria

Select * FROM #foo where rowID > 10

Marisolmarissa

Answer 13

SELECT 
    * 
FROM 
    (
        SELECT 
            top 20              -- ($a) number of records to show
            * 
        FROM
            (
                SELECT 
                    top 29      -- ($b) last record position
                    * 
                FROM 
                    table       -- replace this for table name (i.e. "Customer")
                ORDER BY 
                    2 ASC
            ) AS tbl1 
        ORDER BY 
            2 DESC
    ) AS tbl2 
ORDER BY 
    2 ASC;

-- Examples:

-- Show 5 records from position 5:
-- $a = 5;
-- $b = (5 + 5) - 1
-- $b = 9;

-- Show 10 records from position 4:
-- $a = 10;
-- $b = (10 + 4) - 1
-- $b = 13;

-- To calculate $b:
-- $b = ($a + position) - 1

-- For the present exercise we need to:
-- Show 20 records from position 10:
-- $a = 20;
-- $b = (20 + 10) - 1
-- $b = 29;

Whomsoever

Was a great solution for me. – Rouble

Answer 14

If your ID is unique identifier type or your id in table is not sorted you must do like this below.

select * from
(select ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (select 0)) AS RowNumber,* from table1) a
where a.RowNumber between 2 and 5

The code will be

select * from limit 2,5

Intracellular

Answer 15

better use this in MSSQLExpress 2017.

SELECT * FROM
(
    SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) as [Count], * FROM table1
) as a
WHERE [Count] BETWEEN 10 and 20;

--Giving a Column [Count] and assigning every row a unique counting without ordering something then re select again where you can provide your limits.. :)

Blighter

Answer 16

One of the possible way to get result as below , hope this will help.

declare @start int
declare @end int
SET @start = '5000';  -- 0 , 5000 ,
SET @end = '10000'; -- 5001, 10001
SELECT * FROM ( 
  SELECT TABLE_NAME,TABLE_TYPE, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY TABLE_NAME) as row FROM information_schema.tables
 ) a WHERE a.row > @start and a.row <= @end

Clive

Answer 17

If i remember correctly (it's been a while since i dabbed with SQL Server) you may be able to use something like this: (2005 and up)

SELECT
    *
   ,ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY SomeFields) AS [RowNum]
FROM SomeTable
WHERE RowNum BETWEEN 10 AND 20

Detent

SQL Server 2012: Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 5 Invalid column name 'RowNum'. – Fishhook

sounds like you have a typo in your statement somewhere. RowNum is the name we assign to the expression. Post your problem with the source and the community will help you – Detent

This is not valid syntax. You can't reference in WHERE an alias defined in the same level SELECT clause. – Adeleadelheid