Top Keyword in SQL

This blog is about the Top keyword in SQL and it's use.

What is Top Keyword?

• Top Keyword in SQL is used to retrieve the data from the top of the table.
• It retrieves only the first few set of rows from the top of the desired table.

When to use Top Keyword?

• When you want to retrieve a number of records from the top.
• When you want to retrieve a specific percentage of rows from the top.

Syntax:

SELECT [TOP n [PERCENT] [WITH TIES] ] columnNames

FROM TableName

WHERE SearchCondition

[ORDER BY columnNames]

where,

• TOP is a keyword used to retrieve rows from top of the table.
• n is the number of rows to be retrieved.
• PERCENT keyword can be used with n if we want to retrieve "n" percent of rows.
• WITH TIES specifies the result can contain matching rows too.
• ORDER BY clause specifies the order in which the rows should be returned.

Example:

Select TOP 10 * From Students;

This query retrieves the Top 10 rows from the Students table.

Select TOP 10 PERCENT * From Students;

This query retrieves the Top 10% rows of the Students table.

Select TOP 5 * From Students
Where Marks>80;

This query retrieves the Top 5 records from the Students table where the Marks are greater than 80.

Select Top 10 WITH TIES StudentID, StudentName, Marks, City From Students
Where Marks>80
ORDER BY StudentID;

This query retrieves the Top 10 records from the Students table along with ties where Marks are greater than 80 and will sort the result in ascending order of StudentID.