3.2 — Result Paging with LIMIT

What You'll Learn

• How to use LIMIT to control how many rows you see
• How this compares to viewing the top rows in Excel

From Excel to SQL: Viewing Top Rows

In Excel, you might scroll to see just the first few rows. In SQL, you use LIMIT.

SQL:

SELECT * FROM sales
ORDER BY Amount DESC
LIMIT 100;

• LIMIT 100 shows only the top 100 rows after sorting.

When to Use LIMIT

• Previewing Data: When you want to quickly check the first few rows of a large table without loading everything.
• Performance: Limiting results can make queries run faster, especially on big tables.
• Exporting Samples: If you need to export a sample of your data for testing or sharing.
• Avoiding Overload: Many query tools and database UIs automatically apply a default LIMIT (like 100 or 1000 rows) to prevent accidentally loading millions of rows.

Tip:
If you run a query without LIMIT, your tool may still only show the first 100 or 1000 rows by default. Adding LIMIT ensures you control exactly how many rows you see.

Using OFFSET for Paging

You can use OFFSET to skip rows:

SELECT * FROM sales
LIMIT 5 OFFSET 10;

• Skips first 10 rows, shows rows 11-15.

Key Points

• Use LIMIT to control how many rows you see.
• Combine with ORDER BY for best results.

Next Steps

Next, you’ll learn how to create calculated columns—just like using formulas in Excel.