LIMIT Clause

LIMIT m allows to select the first m rows from the result.

LIMIT n, m allows to select the m rows from the result after skipping the first n rows. The LIMIT m OFFSET n syntax is equivalent.

n and m must be non-negative integers.

If there is no ORDER BY clause that explicitly sorts results, the choice of rows for the result may be arbitrary and non-deterministic.

LIMIT … WITH TIES Modifier

When you set WITH TIES modifier for LIMIT n[,m] and specify ORDER BY expr_list, you will get in result first n or n,m rows and all rows with same ORDER BY fields values equal to row at position n for LIMIT n and m for LIMIT n,m.

This modifier also can be combined with ORDER BY … WITH FILL modifier.

For example, the following query

  1. SELECT * FROM (
  2.     SELECT number%50 AS n FROM numbers(100)
  3. ) ORDER BY n LIMIT 0,5

returns

  1. ┌─n─┐
  2. │ 0 │
  3. │ 0 │
  4. │ 1 │
  5. │ 1 │
  6. │ 2 │
  7. └───┘

but after apply WITH TIES modifier

  1. SELECT * FROM (
  2.     SELECT number%50 AS n FROM numbers(100)
  3. ) ORDER BY n LIMIT 0,5 WITH TIES

it returns another rows set

  1. ┌─n─┐
  2. │ 0 │
  3. │ 0 │
  4. │ 1 │
  5. │ 1 │
  6. │ 2 │
  7. │ 2 │
  8. └───┘

cause row number 6 have same value “2” for field n as row number 5