Select Top # in Presto SQL?

Question

Does Presto SQL really lack TOP X functionality in SELECT statements?

If so, is there a workaround in the meantime?

https://prestodb.io/

Answer 1

If you simply want to limit the number of rows in the result set, you can use LIMIT, with or without ORDER BY:

SELECT department, salary
FROM employees
ORDER BY salary DESC
LIMIT 10

If you want the top values per group, you can use the standard SQL row_number() window function. For example, to get the top 3 employees per department by salary:

SELECT department, salary
FROM (
  SELECT department, salary row_number() OVER (
    PARTITION BY department
    ORDER BY salary DESC) AS rn
  FROM employees
)
WHERE rn <= 3