In earlier versions of SQL Server, TOP allows you to limit the number of rows returned as a number or a percentage in SELECT queries. With SQL Server 2005, you can use TOP in DELETE, UPDATE, and INSERT
queries and can also specify the number of rows (or percent) by using
variables or any valid numeric returning expression (such as a
subquery). The main reason for allowing TOP with DELETE, UPDATE, and INSERT was to replace the SET ROWCOUNT option, which SQL Server traditionally didn’t optimize very well.
You can specify the TOP
limit as a literal number or an expression. If you’re using an
expression, you must enclose it in parentheses. The expression should
be of the bigint data type when you are not using the PERCENT option and a float value in the range 0 through 100 when you are using the PERCENT option. You might find it useful to create an expression for TOP and make it a parameter you pass in to a stored procedure, as shown here:
Listing 1. Using TOP enhancements in a stored procedure
USE AdventureWorks
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE usp_SEL_ReturnTopOrders
@NumberofRows bigint
AS
SELECT TOP (@NumberofRows) SalesOrderID
FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader
ORDER BY SalesOrderID
|
Executing the stored procedure is easy. Just pass in the number of records you want (in this case, 100):
EXEC usp_SEL_ReturnTopOrders @NumberofRows = 100
Here are the results:
SalesOrderID
------------
43659
43660
43661
43662
43663
[more rows]
Using a subquery can be powerful when you’re doing things on the fly. The following example shows how to get the TOP n orders based on how many records are in the SalesPerson table:
SELECT TOP (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Sales.SalesPerson)
SalesOrderID, RevisionNumber, OrderDate
FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader
ORDER BY SalesOrderID
The results look like this:
SalesOrderID Revision NumberOrderDate
--------------------------------------------------
43659 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43660 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43661 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43662 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43663 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43664 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43665 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43666 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43667 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43668 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43669 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43670 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43671 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43672 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43673 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43674 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
43675 1 2001-07-01 00:00:00.000
Using the PERCENT option is just as easy. Just add the PERCENT keyword, and make sure your variable is a float.
In this example, we’re asking for the top 10 percent, so we’ll get back
3147 records because the AdventureWorks SalesOrderHeader table has
approximately 31,465 records in it.
Listing 2. Returning TOP percentages
DECLARE @NumberOfRows AS FLOAT
SET @NumberOfRows = 10
SELECT TOP (@NumberOfRows) PERCENT *
FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader
ORDER BY OrderDate
