What is the best way to paginate results in SQL Server

Question

What is the best way (performance wise) to paginate results in SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, 2012 if you also want to get the total number of results (before paginating)?

Answer 1

The best way for paging in sql server 2012 is by using offset and fetch next in a stored procedure. OFFSET Keyword - If we use offset with the order by clause then the query will skip the number of records we specified in OFFSET n Rows.

FETCH NEXT Keywords - When we use Fetch Next with an order by clause only it will returns the no of rows you want to display in paging, without Offset then SQL will generate an error. here is the example given below.

create procedure sp_paging
(
 @pageno as int,
 @records as int
)
as
begin
declare @offsetcount as int
set @offsetcount=(@pageno-1)*@records
select id,bs,variable from salary order by id offset @offsetcount rows fetch Next @records rows only
end

you can execute it as follow.

exec sp_paging 2,3