How is the pgsql limit used?

10 months ago

Noah Thompson

2 minutes

`LIMIT` is a keyword used in PostgreSQL to restrict the number of results returned in a query. It can be used in a `SELECT` statement to specify the desired number of records to be returned. The basic syntax is as follows:

SELECT column1, column2, ...

FROM table_name

LIMIT number;

In this case, `column1, column2, …` are the names of the columns to be returned, `table_name` is the name of the table to be queried, and `number` is the number of records to be returned. For example, to return the first 10 records from the table, you can use the following statement:

SELECT *
FROM table_name
LIMIT 10;

To skip the first 5 records and retrieve the next 10 records, you can use the `OFFSET` clause combined with the `LIMIT` keyword.

SELECT *

FROM table_name

OFFSET 5

LIMIT 10;

This will return the next 10 records starting from the 6th record. Additionally, the `LIMIT` keyword can be used with the `ORDER BY` clause to sort the query results and return a specified number of records. For example, the following statement will return the top 10 records from a table sorted by a specific column:

SELECT *

FROM table_name

ORDER BY column_name

LIMIT 10;