SQL SELECT TOP Tutorial
The SELECT TOP clause is used to return the top X numbers or N Percent row from the table. Only MSSQL server and MS Access database support the SELECT TOP clause.
To fetch limited number of records, LIMIT clause is used in MySQL database & ROWNUM in Oracle database. You can specify “number of rows” or “percentage of rows” after TOP keyword.
Syntax of a SQL TOP CLAUSE
SELECT TOP number|percent column_name(s)
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition];
Note: WHERE condition is optional to use along with SELECT TOP Clause.
SQL SELECT TOP Clause Example:
Database table “Employee”
| Employee ID | Employee Name | Age | Gender | Location | Salary |
| 1001 | Henry | 54 | Male | New York | 100000 |
| 1002 | Tina | 36 | Female | Moscow | 80000 |
| 1003 | John | 24 | Male | London | 40000 |
| 1004 | Mile | 31 | Male | London | 70000 |
| 1005 | Tara | 26 | Female | Moscow | 50000 |
| 1006 | Sohpie | 29 | Female | London | 60000 |
MSSQL Server and MS Access Example: Statement which would fetch the top 3 records from “Employee” table:
The user can specify number of rows or % of rows
SELECT TOP 3 * FROM Employee;
or
SELECT TOP 50 PERCENT * FROM Employee;
If one is using MySQL, then here is an equivalent example
SELECT * FROM Employee
LIMIT 3;
If one is using ORACLE, then here is an equivalent example
SELECT * FROM Employee
WHERE ROWNUM <= 3;
SQL TOP CLAUSE Output
All these three commands would give the following results in respective database.
| Employee ID | Employee Name | Age | Gender | Location | Salary |
| 1001 | Henry | 54 | Male | New York | 100000 |
| 1002 | Tina | 36 | Female | Moscow | 80000 |
| 1003 | John | 24 | Male | London | 40000 |
When is SQL SELECT TOP Useful?
Top (MySql Limit, Oracle RowNum) is one of the most useful commands being used when selecting and filtering rows. This TOP keyword is important when we are not interested in getting all of the rows fulfilling the condition.
This keyword is also used when finding out the highest (n-highest), lowest(n-lowest) data from table.
