Oracle SQL get the first and last records from an ordered dataset

Question

The software I am working on has a requirement to get the first and last records of an ordered dataset. Dataset is ordered by a date column.

The data I have:

--table "notes":
--    ordered by this
--                |
--                V
note_id      date_created attribute1  attribute2  ... -- I want to get
-----------------------------------------------------
596          2014/01/20   ...         ...         ... -- <- this
468          2014/02/28   ...         ...         ...
324          2014/03/01   ...         ...         ...
532          2014/04/08   ...         ...         ...
465          2014/05/31   ...         ...         ... -- <- and this

Desired output:

596          2014/01/20   ...         ...         ...
465          2014/05/31   ...         ...         ...

Answer 1

You can use window functions:

select t.*
from (select t.*, row_number() over (order by date_created) as seqnum,
             count(*) over () as cnt
      from t
     ) t
where seqnum = 1 or seqnum = cnt;

In Oracle 12, you can also do:

select t.*
from t
order by date_created
fetch first 1 rows only
union all
select t.*
from t
order by date_created desc
fetch first 1 rows only;

Answer 2

If I got it right, try this:

select t1.*
  from YOUR_TABLE t1
     , (
        select min(note_id) keep(dense_rank first order by date_created) min_val
             , max(note_id) keep(dense_rank last order by date_created) max_val
          from YOUR_TABLE
       ) t2
 where t1.note_id = t2.min_val
    or t1.note_id = t2.max_val