LIMIT

MySQL

Example

SELECT * FROM employees
LIMIT 5;

Output

+-----------+--------+----------+
| EmployeeID | Name   | Position |
+-----------+--------+----------+
|         1  | John   | Analyst  |
|         2  | Sarah  | Designer |
|         3  | Jane   | Developer|
|         4  | Bob    | Analyst  |
|         5  | Alice  | Designer |
+-----------+--------+----------+

Explanation

The LIMIT keyword in MySQL is used to specify the maximum number of records to return. In this example, the query is selecting all columns from the “employees” table, but only returns the first 5 records.

PostgreSQL

Example

SELECT * FROM Employees
LIMIT 5;

Output

| EmployeeID | LastName | FirstName |
|------------|----------|-----------|
| 1          | Brown    | Julia     |
| 2          | Davis    | John      |
| 3          | Miller   | James     |
| 4          | Wilson   | Patricia  |
| 5          | Moore    | Linda     |

Explanation

In this SQL query, the LIMIT clause is used to constrain the number of rows returned by the query. This specific query will only return the top 5 records from the ‘Employees’ table.

SQLite

Example

SELECT * FROM Customers
ORDER BY CustomerName
LIMIT 3;

Output

CustomerName | ContactName | Country
-------------|-------------|---------
Alfreds      | Maria       | Germany
Anas         | Ana         | Mexico
Around       | Thomas      | UK

Explanation

Here, the LIMIT clause restricts the output to only the first three records of the Customers table sorted by the ‘CustomerName’ in ascending order.