Can there be a database-agnostic SQL query to fetch top N rows?

Question

We want to be able to select top N rows using a SQL Query. The target database could be Oracle or MySQL. Is there an elegant approach to this? (Needless to say, we\'re dealing w

Answer 1

No. The syntax is different.

You may, however, create views:

/* Oracle */

CREATE VIEW v_table
AS
SELECT  *
FROM    (
        SELECT  *
        FROM    table
        ORDER BY
                column
        )
WHERE   rownum <= n

/* MySQL */

CREATE VIEW v_table
AS
SELECT  *
FROM    table
ORDER BY
        column
LIMIT   n