How to find third or nᵗʰ maximum salary from salary table?

Question

How to find third or n^th maximum salary from salary table(EmpID, EmpName, EmpSalary) in optimized way?

Answer 1

In 2008 we can use ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY EmpSalary DESC) to get a rank without ties that we can use.

For example we can get the 8th highest this way, or change @N to something else or use it as a parameter in a function if you like.

DECLARE @N INT = 8;
WITH rankedSalaries AS
(
SELECT
EmpID
,EmpName
,EmpSalary,
,RN = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY EmpSalary DESC)
FROM salary
)
SELECT
EmpID
,EmpName
,EmpSalary
FROM rankedSalaries
WHERE RN = @N;

In SQL Server 2012 as you might know this is performed more intuitively using LAG().

Answer 2

Just change the inner query value: E.g Select Top (2)* from Student_Info order by ClassID desc

Use for both problem:

Select Top (1)* from 
(
 Select Top (1)* from Student_Info order by ClassID desc 
) as wsdwe
order by ClassID 

Answer 3

Third or nth maximum salary from salary table without using subquery

select salary from salary
   ORDER   BY salary DESC
   OFFSET  N-1 ROWS
   FETCH NEXT 1 ROWS ONLY

For 3rd highest salary put 2 in place of N-1

Answer 4

SELECT MIN(COLUMN_NAME)
FROM   (
           SELECT DISTINCT TOP 3     COLUMN_NAME
           FROM   TABLE_NAME
           ORDER BY
                  COLUMN_NAME        DESC
       ) AS 'COLUMN_NAME'

Answer 5

Optimized way: Instead of subquery just use limit.

select distinct salary from employee order by salary desc limit nth, 1;

See limit syntax here http://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-limit.aspx

Answer 6

Use ROW_NUMBER(if you want a single) or DENSE_RANK(for all related rows):

WITH CTE AS
(
    SELECT EmpID, EmpName, EmpSalary,
           RN = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY EmpSalary DESC)
    FROM dbo.Salary
)
SELECT EmpID, EmpName, EmpSalary
FROM CTE
WHERE RN = @NthRow