selecting TOP N rows in SQL

Suppose you have a large dataset but you want to view only first 5 rows. How do you do it?

In this tutorial we will provide 3 different ways to select top N rows depending whether you are using Microsoft SQL server or MS Access or MySQL or Oracle.

Microsoft SQL server or MS Access

SELECT TOP 5 *
FROM my_table;

MySQL

SELECT * FROM my_table
LIMIT 5;

If you want to get next 5 rows starting from 3rd row in MySQL then

SELECT * FROM my_table
LIMIT 2,5;

LIMIT X,Y in MySQL means: Get next Y rows starting from (X+1)th row.

Oracle

SELECT * FROM my_table
WHERE ROWNUM <= 5;