Thread: top?

top?

From
Richard Rowell
Date:
Just wondering if there was a "TOP" equivilant in Postgres?  
IE 
select top 1 * from froo
(only returns 1 row)

TIA
-- 

_________________________
Richard Rowell
rwrowell@bellsouth.net

If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves 
upon execution. - Robert Sewell 



Re: top?

From
Stephan Szabo
Date:
On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Richard Rowell wrote:

> Just wondering if there was a "TOP" equivilant in Postgres?
> IE
> select top 1 * from froo
> (only returns 1 row)

select * from froo limit 1;

Usually you'll want to order as well so that you get a meaningfully
chosen row rather than whatever row happens to be scanned first.




Re: top?

From
"Christopher Kings-Lynne"
Date:
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Richard Rowell wrote:
>
> > Just wondering if there was a "TOP" equivilant in Postgres?
> > IE
> > select top 1 * from froo
> > (only returns 1 row)
>
> select * from froo limit 1;
>
> Usually you'll want to order as well so that you get a meaningfully
> chosen row rather than whatever row happens to be scanned first.

Actually I think its essential that he orders it.  I think the 'top' thing
is a microsoft-ism that gets the 'top 10 items' say from a column.  I can't
remember if it's the 10 with the highest values or the ten with the most
common values...

Chris



Re: top?

From
"SHELTON,MICHAEL (Non-HP-Boise,ex1)"
Date:
TOP works exactly like LIMIT.  In MS SQL you get whatever the first n rows
are returned (no particular order guaranteed).  So unless you want garbage
you have to order your results.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Kings-Lynne [mailto:chriskl@familyhealth.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 7:00 PM
To: Stephan Szabo; Richard Rowell
Cc: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [SQL] top?


> On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Richard Rowell wrote:
>
> > Just wondering if there was a "TOP" equivilant in Postgres?
> > IE
> > select top 1 * from froo
> > (only returns 1 row)
>
> select * from froo limit 1;
>
> Usually you'll want to order as well so that you get a meaningfully
> chosen row rather than whatever row happens to be scanned first.

Actually I think its essential that he orders it.  I think the 'top' thing
is a microsoft-ism that gets the 'top 10 items' say from a column.  I can't
remember if it's the 10 with the highest values or the ten with the most
common values...

Chris


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