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I'm working on a small project in which I'll need to select a record from a temporary table based on the actual row number of the record.
How can I select a record based on its row number?
910
You can add one to the table (sort of) with an IDENTITY column. Or you can add one (for real) in a query with the ROW_NUMBER() function, but unless you specify your own unique ORDER for the rows, the ROW_NUMBERS will be assigned non-deterministically.
To select rows using selection symbols for character or graphic data, use the LIKE keyword in a WHERE clause, and the underscore and percent sign as selection symbols. You can create multiple row conditions, and use the AND, OR, or IN keywords to connect the conditions.
You can use ROWNUM to limit the number of rows returned by a query, as in this example: SELECT * FROM employees WHERE ROWNUM < 10; If an ORDER BY clause follows ROWNUM in the same query, then the rows will be reordered by the ORDER BY clause. The results can vary depending on the way the rows are accessed.
ROW_NUMBER function is a SQL ranking function that assigns a sequential rank number to each new record in a partition. When the SQL Server ROW NUMBER function detects two identical values in the same partition, it assigns different rank numbers to both.
A couple of the other answers touched on the problem, but this might explain. There really isn't an order implied in SQL (set theory). So to refer to the "fifth row" requires you to introduce the concept
Select *
From
(
Select
Row_Number() Over (Order By SomeField) As RowNum
, *
From TheTable
) t2
Where RowNum = 5
In the subquery, a row number is "created" by defining the order you expect. Now the outer query is able to pull the fifth entry out of that ordered set.
170
Technically SQL Rows do not have "RowNumbers" in their tables. Some implementations (Oracle, I think) provide one of their own, but that's not standard and SQL Server/T-SQL does not. You can add one to the table (sort of) with an IDENTITY column.
Or you can add one (for real) in a query with the ROW_NUMBER() function, but unless you specify your own unique ORDER for the rows, the ROW_NUMBERS will be assigned non-deterministically.
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