Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!unify!nico
From: nico@unify.uucp (Nico Nierenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Simple SQL question
Keywords: SQL
Message-ID: <1989Nov21.173541.25422@unify.uucp>
Date: 21 Nov 89 17:35:41 GMT
References: <98813@ti-csl.csc.ti.com> <1989Nov19.200834.266@mrspoc.Transact.COM> <1217@hpuviea.UUCP>
Reply-To: nico@unify.UUCP (Nico Nierenberg)
Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA
Lines: 24

In article <1217@hpuviea.UUCP> gernot@hpuviea.UUCP (Gernot Kunz) writes:
>
>Oops, what a tricky UNIX hack to circumvent an obviously
>missing SQL functionality. In ORACLE you could do THIS:
>
>       create table temptable(name ..., birthdate ...);
>
>       insert into temptable
>       select name, birthdate
>       from employee
>       order by birthdate desc;
>
>       select name,birthdate
>       from temptable
>       where rownum <= 10 ;
>
>and remain in pure SQL. It requires a temporary table, though.
>

You have got to be kidding to call this "pure" SQL.  You are relying on
an artifact of the Oracle system that the rownum can be reliably
counted on in a new table.  I actually think that this is less desirable
than Steven's original idea.  If you don't like the Unix flavor then
use some other filter or embedded SQL.