Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!columbia!rutgers!ames!ptsfa!ihnp4!packard!benw
From: benw@packard.UUCP (B Weber)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Informix/ESQL Question
Message-ID: <584@packard.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 3-Aug-87 12:51:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: packard.584
Posted: Mon Aug  3 12:51:23 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Aug-87 04:52:17 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner
Lines: 25



I'm a relative newcomer to Informix, so bear with me...

I'm using ESQL to manage my database.

My question is:  Is there any way to do a select so that Informix
just searches for a specified number of data items?

For instance, suppose we have 100000 records in a table...maybe
8000 are of the kind we are interested in.  However, the user
wants a report that just lists 5 of them (any five).  Right
now we are using a cursor to do a select (of the 8000 records),
and then doing 5 fetches to get five items for the report.

Obviously, it is a tremendous waste of time to search the
whole table, only to actually use a tiny number of the
data items returned.  So, is there any way to get something
equivalent to "Select 5 items from ... where...."?

					Thanks,
					Ben Weber
					AT&T Technologies
					Liberty Corner, NJ
					ficit|packard!benw