limit the select to single row

Hello,
How can I limit the select statement to 1 single row ?
How can I limit the select statement to specific no. of rows ?
Thanks :)SELECT TOP 1
FROM ...
ORDER BY ...
SELECT TOP 10
FROM ...
ORDER BY ...
Note that without ORDER BY, which rows that are returned is undefined.
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Tibor Karaszi, SQL Server MVP
http://www.karaszi.com/sqlserver/default.asp
http://www.solidqualitylearning.com/
Blog: http://solidqualitylearning.com/blogs/tibor/
"Eitan M" <no_spam_please@.nospam_please.com> wrote in message
news:%23lJnZbwoFHA.860@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> Hello,
> How can I limit the select statement to 1 single row ?
> How can I limit the select statement to specific no. of rows ?
> Thanks :)
>|||The obvious answer to your first question is to use a WHERE clause that
references a unique key.
In the second case you'll probably want to take a look at the SELECT
TOP n feature or use SET ROWCOUNT.
With TOP and ROWCOUNT be aware that unless you specify a unique key in
the ORDER BY clause or use the TOP WITH TIES modifier you may get
undefined results. That ought to be common sense but too many times I
see people omit to specify a well-defined criteria for a top n subset.
David Portas
SQL Server MVP
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