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It's a common thing in most SQL implementations to be able to select a "sliding window" subset of all the rows returned in a query. A common use case for this is pagination. For example, say I have a search page with 10 results on each page. For implementations that support LIMIT and OFFSET keywords, the query used to return results for each page would be as follows: page one would use SELECT ... LIMIT 10 OFFSET 0, page 2 would use SELECT ... LIMIT 10 OFFSET 10, page 3 would use SELECT ... LIMIT 10 OFFSET 20, etc. (note that the OFFSET takes effect before the LIMIT).

Anyway, I'm trying to mimic this functionality in OpenEdge's SQL engine. I've already figured out that SELECT TOP is basically equivalent to LIMIT, however I can't find anything similar to OFFSET (I don't think there is an exact equivalent). SQL Server and Oracle also lack an OFFSET, but they have a pseudocolumn called ROWCOUNT and ROWNUM, respectively, that can be used to mimic the behavior using nested selects (see here and here).

In the 10.2B SQL Reference doc, p49 there is a subsection entitled TOP clause that says at the bottom

SELECT TOP is the functional equivalent of the Oracle ROWNUM functionality. Note that SELECT TOP is defined simply in terms of a limit on the result set size, and the optimizer determines how to use this limit for best data access. Thus, SELECT TOP does not have all the "procedural rules" used to define the meaning of the Oracle ROWNUM phrase.

However, this seems to be inaccurate as according to TOP's syntax it cannot be used as a predicate like ROWNUM can (e.g. I can't say SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE TOP > 5 AND TOP < 10). So TOP is not functionally equivalent to ROWNUM.

Is there any way to mimic OFFSET, or am I out of luck?

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Abe Voelker
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  • I think, this is not supported in Progress SQL. Do you can use a PK-ID to find, which row was selected in last SELECT TOP 10? Than you can write in the next SELECT something like SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE Cutsomer.CustID > lastcustomerid TOP 10... – firhang Jun 11 '12 at 08:23
  • @firhang Yes, you are correct that it is not supported. The PK solution works for when queries are constructed with PK's *and* I want to retrieve them in PK-order, but that will not always be the case so it doesn't work for a general solution (which is what I need). Thanks! – Abe Voelker Jun 11 '12 at 14:44

1 Answers1

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OpenEdge 11.2 added support for OFFSET and FETCH clauses to SQL SELECT queries; versions of OpenEdge below 11.2 do not support OFFSET/FETCH.

From the 11.2 product documentation "SQL Reference" document:

The OFFSET clause specifies the number of rows to skip, before starting to return rows
from the query expression. The FETCH clause specifies the number of rows to return,
after processing the OFFSET clause.

It's worth noting that the TOP and OFFSET/FETCH clauses are mutually exclusive - TOP cannot be used in a query that uses OFFSET or FETCH.

Example queries from the documentation:

Skip the first 10 rows and return the rest of the qualified rows:

SELECT OrderID,OrderDate,custID,filler
FROM dbo.Orders OFFSET 10;

Return the first 10 rows without skipping any:

SELECT OrderID,OrderDate,custID,filler
FROM dbo.Orders
ORDER BY OrderDate DESC, OrderID DESC
FETCH FIRST 10 ROWS ONLY;

Return rows 51 through 60 in the result set of the query:

SELECT OrderID,OrderDate,custID,filler
FROM dbo.Orders
ORDER BY OrderDate DESC, OrderID DESC
OFFSET 50 ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY;
Abe Voelker
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