How do I limit the number of rows returned by an Oracle query after ordering?

Question

Is there a way to make an Oracle query behave like it contains a MySQL limit clause?

In MySQL, I can do this:

Answer 1

SQL Standard

As I explained in this article, since version 12c Oracle supports the SQL:2008 Standard, which provides the following syntax to limit the SQL result set:

SELECT
    title
FROM
    post
ORDER BY
    id DESC
FETCH FIRST 50 ROWS ONLY

Oracle 11g and older versions

Prior to version 12c, to fetch the Top-N records, you had to use a derived table and the ROWNUM pseudocolumn:

SELECT *
FROM (
    SELECT
        title
    FROM
        post
    ORDER BY
        id DESC
)
WHERE ROWNUM <= 50