Row Offset in SQL Server

Question

I would avoid using SELECT *. Specify columns you actually want even though it may be all of them.

SQL Server 2005+

SELECT col1, col2 
FROM (
    SELECT col1, col2, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY ID) AS RowNum
    FROM MyTable
) AS MyDerivedTable
WHERE MyDerivedTable.RowNum BETWEEN @startRow AND @endRow

SQL Server 2000

Efficiently Paging Through Large Result Sets in SQL Server 2000

A More Efficient Method for Paging Through Large Result Sets

If you will be processing all pages in order then simply remembering the last key value seen on the previous page and using TOP (25) ... WHERE Key > @last_key ORDER BY Key can be the best performing method if suitable indexes exist to allow this to be seeked efficiently - or an API cursor if they don't.

For selecting an arbitary page the best solution for SQL Server 2005 - 2008 R2 is probably ROW_NUMBER and BETWEEN

For SQL Server 2012+ you can use the enhanced ORDER BY clause for this need.

SELECT  *
FROM     MyTable 
ORDER BY OrderingColumn ASC 
OFFSET  50 ROWS 
FETCH NEXT 25 ROWS ONLY 

Though it remains to be seen how well performing this option will be.

This is one way (SQL2000)

SELECT * FROM
(
    SELECT TOP (@pageSize) * FROM
    (
        SELECT TOP (@pageNumber * @pageSize) *
        FROM tableName 
        ORDER BY columnName ASC
    ) AS t1 
    ORDER BY columnName DESC
) AS t2 
ORDER BY columnName ASC

and this is another way (SQL 2005)

;WITH results AS (
    SELECT 
        rowNo = ROW_NUMBER() OVER( ORDER BY columnName ASC )
        , *
    FROM tableName 
) 
SELECT * 
FROM results
WHERE rowNo between (@pageNumber-1)*@pageSize+1 and @pageNumber*@pageSize

You can use ROW_NUMBER() function to get what you want:

SELECT *
FROM (SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY id) RowNr, id FROM tbl) t
WHERE RowNr BETWEEN 10 AND 20

There is OFFSET .. FETCH in SQL Server 2012, but you will need to specify an ORDER BY column.

If you really don't have any explicit column that you could pass as an ORDER BY column (as others have suggested), then you can use this trick:

SELECT * FROM MyTable 
ORDER BY @@VERSION 
OFFSET 50 ROWS FETCH NEXT 25 ROWS ONLY

... or

SELECT * FROM MyTable 
ORDER BY (SELECT 0)
OFFSET 50 ROWS FETCH NEXT 25 ROWS ONLY

We're using it in jOOQ when users do not explicitly specify an order. This will then produce pretty random ordering without any additional costs.

For tables with more and large data columns, I prefer:

SELECT 
  tablename.col1,
  tablename.col2,
  tablename.col3,
  ...
FROM
(
  (
    SELECT
      col1
    FROM 
    (
      SELECT col1, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY col1 ASC) AS RowNum
      FROM tablename
      WHERE ([CONDITION])
    )
    AS T1 WHERE T1.RowNum BETWEEN [OFFSET] AND [OFFSET + LIMIT]
  )
  AS T2 INNER JOIN tablename ON T2.col1=tablename.col1
);

-

[CONDITION] can contain any WHERE clause for searching.
[OFFSET] specifies the start,
[LIMIT] the maximum results.

It has much better performance on tables with large data like BLOBs, because the ROW_NUMBER function only has to look through one column, and only the matching rows are returned with all columns.

See my select for paginator

SELECT TOP @limit * FROM (
   SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY colunx ASC) offset, * FROM (

     -- YOU SELECT HERE
     SELECT * FROM mytable


   ) myquery
) paginator
WHERE offset > @offset

This solves the pagination ;)