SQL FETCH

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the SQL FETCH clause to limit the number of rows returned by a query.

Introduction to SQL FETCH clause

To limit the number of rows returned by a query, you use the LIMIT clause. The LIMIT clause is widely supported by many database systems such as MySQL, H2, and HSQLDB. However, the LIMIT clause is not in SQL standard.

SQL:2008 introduced the OFFSET FETCH clause which has a similar function to the LIMIT clause. The OFFSET FETCH clause allows you to skip N first rows in a result set before starting to return any rows.

The following shows the syntax of the SQL FETCH clause:

OFFSET offset_rows { ROW | ROWS }
FETCH { FIRST | NEXT } [ fetch_rows ] { ROW | ROWS } ONLY

In this syntax:

• The ROW and ROWS, FIRST and NEXT are the synonyms. Therefore, you can use them interchangeably.
• The offset_rows is an integer number which must be zero or positive. In case the offset_rows is greater than the number of rows in the result set, no rows will be returned.
• The fetch_rows is also an integer number that determines the number of rows to be returned. The value of fetch_rows is equal to or greater than one.

Because rows are stored in the table in an unspecified order, you should always use the FETCH clause with the ORDER BY clause to get consistent output.

Many database systems support the OFFSET FETCH clause including Oracle Database 12c+, PostgreSQL 10+, and Microsoft SQL Server 2012+. However, each database system implements the OFFSET FETCH clause differently with some variances.

The OFFSET FETCH clause is typically used in the client or web applications that require pagination. For example, if each page has ten rows, to get the rows of the second page, you can skip the first ten rows and returns the next ten rows.

SQL FETCH examples

We will use the employees table in the sample database for the demonstration.

The following statement returns the first employee who has the highest salary:

SELECT 
    employee_id, 
    first_name, 
    last_name, 
    salary
FROM employees
ORDER BY 
    salary DESC
OFFSET 0 ROWS
FETCH NEXT 1 ROWS ONLY;

In this example, first, the ORDER BY clause sort the employees by salary from high to low. The OFFSET clause skips zero rows and the FETCH clause returns the first row.

The following statement sorts the employees by salary, skips the first five employees with the highest salary, and fetches the next five ones.

SELECT 
    employee_id, 
    first_name, 
    last_name, 
    salary
FROM employees
ORDER BY 
    salary DESC
OFFSET 5 ROWS
FETCH NEXT 5 ROWS ONLY;