How to skip/offset rows in Oracle database? - sql

Question

I am writing a very simple query for an Oracle DB (version 9).
Somehow I can get first 5 rows:
select * from cities where rownum <= 5
But skipping 5 rows returns an empty result:
select * from cities where rownum >= 5
Using:
Oracle SQL Developer
Oracle DB version 9
Why is the second query returning an empty result?

Answer 1

In Oracle Database 12c (release 1) and above, you can do this very simple, for skip 5 rows:
SELECT * FROM T OFFSET 5 ROWS
and for skip 5 rows and take 15 rows:
SELECT * FROM T OFFSET 5 ROWS FETCH NEXT 15 ROWS ONLY

Answer 2

You can use the following query to skip the first not n of rows.
select * from (
select rslts.*, rownum as rec_no from (
<<Query with proper order by (If you don't have proper order by you will see weird results)>>
) rslts
) where rec_no > <<startRowNum - n>>
The above query is similar to pagination query below.
select * from (
select rslts.*, rownum as rec_no from (
<<Query with proper order by (If you don't have proper order by you will see weird results)>>
) rslts where rownum <= <<endRowNum>>
) where rec_no > <<startRowNum>>
Your cities query:
select * from (
select rslts.*, rownum as rec_no from (
select * from cities order by 1
) rslts
) where rec_no > 5 <<startRowNum>>
Note: Assume first column in cities table is unique key

Answer 3

Oracle increments rownum each time it adds a row to the result set. So saying rownum < 5 is fine; as it adds each of the first 5 rows it increments rownum, but then once ruwnum = 5 the WHERE clause stops matching, no more rows are added to the result, and though you don't notice this rownum stops incrementing.
But if you say WHERE rownum > 5 then right off the bat, the WHERE clause doesn't match; and since, say, the first row isn't added to the result set, rownum isn't incremented... so rownum can never reach a value greater than 5 and the WHERE clause can never match.
To get the result you want, you can use row_number() over() in a subquery, like
select *
from (select row_number() over() rn, -- other values
from table
where -- ...)
where rn > 5
Update - As noted by others, this kind of query only makes sense if you can
control the order of the row numbering, so you should really use row_number() over(order bysomething) where something is a useful ordering key in deciding which records are "the first 5 records".

Answer 4

rownum is being increased only when a row is being output, so this type of condition won't work.
In any case, you are not ordering your rows, so what's the point?

Answer 5

Used row_number() over (order by id):
select * from
(select row_number() over (order by id) rn, c.* from countries c)
where rn > 5
Used ROWNUM:
select * from
(select rownum rn, c.* from countries c)
where rn > 5
Important note:
Using alias as countries c instead of countries is required! Without, it gives an error "missing expression"

Answer 6

Even better would be:
select * from mytab sample(5) fetch next 1 rows only;
Sample clause indicates the probability of each row getting picked up in the sampling process. FETCH NEXT clause indicates the number of rows you want to select.

Answer 7

With this code, you can query your table with skip and take.
select * from (
select a.*, rownum rnum from (
select * from cities
) a
) WHERE rnum >= :skip + 1 AND rnum <= :skip + :take
This code works with Oracle 11g. With Oracle 12, there is already a better way to perform this queries with offset and fetch