SELECT TOP

SELECT TOP, LIMIT and ROWNUM

The LIMIT, SELECT TOP, or ROWNUM command is employed to determine the number of records to be returned.

Note: SQL Server utilizes SELECT TOP, MySQL employs LIMIT, and Oracle uses ROWNUM.

The following SQL statement retrieves the first three records from the “Customers” table (for SQL Server):

SELECT TOP 3 * FROM Customers;

The following SQL statement demonstrates an equivalent example using the LIMIT clause (for MySQL):

SELECT * FROM Customers
LIMIT 3;

The following SQL statement illustrates an equivalent example using ROWNUM (for Oracle):

SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE ROWNUM <= 3;