Find out if query exceeds arbitrary limit using ROWNUM? - sql

Question

I have a stored proc in Oracle, and we're limiting the number of records with ROWNUM based on a parameter. However, we also have a requirement to know whether the search result count exceeded the arbitrary limit (even though we're only passing data up to the limit; searches can return a lot of data, and if the limit is exceeded a user may want to refine their query.)
The limit's working well, but I'm attempting to pass an OUT value as a flag to signal when the maximum results were exceeded. My idea for this was to get the count of the inner table and compare it to the count of the outer select query (with ROWNUM) but I'm not sure how I can get that into a variable. Has anyone done this before? Is there any way that I can do this without selecting everything twice?
Thank you.
EDIT: For the moment, I am actually doing two identical selects - one for the count only, selected into my variable, and one for the actual records. I then pass back the comparison of the base result count to my max limit parameter. This means two selects, which isn't ideal. Still looking for an answer here.

Answer 1

You can add a column to the query:
select * from (
select . . . , count(*) over () as numrows
from . . .
where . . .
) where rownum <= 1000;
And then report numrows as the size of the final result set.

Answer 2

You could use a nested subquery:
select id, case when max_count > 3 then 'Exceeded' else 'OK' end as flag
from (
select id, rn, max(rn) over () as max_count
from (
select id, rownum as rn
from t
)
where rownum <= 4
)
where rownum <= 3;
The inner level is your actual query (which you probably have filters and an order-by clause in really). The middle later restricts to your actual limit + 1, which still allows Oracle to optimise using a stop key, and uses an analytic count over that inner result set to see if you got a fourth record (without requiring a scan of all matching records). And the outer layer restricts to your original limit.
With a sample table with 10 rows, this gets:
ID FLAG
---------- --------
1 Exceeded
2 Exceeded
3 Exceeded
If the inner query had a filter that returned fewer rows, say:
select id, rownum as rn
from t
where id < 4
it would get:
ID FLAG
---------- --------
1 OK
2 OK
3 OK
Of course for this demo I haven't done any ordering so you would get indeterminate results. And from your description you would use your variable instead of 3, and (your variable + 1) instead of 4.

Answer 3

In my application I do a very simple approach. I do the normal SELECT and when the number of returned rows is equal to the limit then the client application shows LIMIT reached message, because is it very likely that my query would return more rows in case you would not limit the result.
Of course, when the number of rows is exactly the limit then this is a wrong indication. However, in my application the limit is set mainly for performance reasons by end-user, a typical limit is "1000 rows" or "10000 rows", for example.
In my case this solution is fully sufficient - and it is simple.
Update:
Are you aware of the row_limiting_clause? It was introduced in Oracle 12.1
For example this query
SELECT employee_id, last_name
FROM employees
ORDER BY employee_id
OFFSET 5 ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY;
will return row 6 to row 16 of the entire result set. It may support you in finding a solution.
Another idea is this one:
SELECT employee_id, last_name
FROM employees
UNION ALL
SELECT NULL, NULL FROM dual
ORDER BY employee_id NULLS LAST
When you get the row where employee_id IS NULL then you know you reached the end of your result-set and no further records will arrive.

Answer 4

Select the whole thing, then select the count and the data, restricting the number of rows.
with
base as
(
select c1, c2, c3
from table
where condition
)
select (select count(*) from base), c1, c2, c3
from base
where rownum < 100