Posted by Gert-Jan Strik on 12/31/07 19:20

metaperl,

Logically, this statement will select all rows from "table", sort them
on column id, select the first 25 of them, and return these rows.

If you would want the other behavior that you describe (which is
unlikely), you would have to write this:

SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT TOP 25 *
FROM table
ORDER BY NEWID()
) AS T
ORDER BY T.id

--
Gert-Jan


metaperl wrote:
>
> If I do
>
> SELECT TOP 25 * FROM table ORDER BY id
>
> does it select any 25 records and then order them
>
> or does it SELECT all the records, order them by ID then return the
> first 25?
>
> I'm guessing the former (based on some comparative SELECTs) and think
> I need to do this:
>
> SELECT TOP 25
> (SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY id)
>
> to get what I want.

• Next in forum: Re: SELECT TOP * ORDER BY question
• Prev in forum: Re: SELECT TOP * ORDER BY question
• Thread view: Re: SELECT TOP * ORDER BY question

[Reply to this message]