How to get second largest or third largest entry from a table

Question

Can anyone please tell me how to find out the N th largest entry from a table in Oracle?

Like for largest we can use MAX(column_name) i

Answer 1

SELECT DISTINCT (a.sal) FROM EMP A WHERE &N = (
  SELECT COUNT (DISTINCT (b.sal)) FROM EMP B WHERE a.sal<=b.sal
);

Replace &N with you desired number. For example, 2 will give you the second largest salary.

If you are using PL/SQL, just execute the statement. It will prompt for N.

Answer 2

To get second largest salary use this:

select salary from 
  (select s2.salary,rownum rm from
     (select distinct salary from employees order by salary desc)
  s2 where rownum<=2)
where rm >= 2

Answer 3

Try this:

SELECT DISTINCT TOP 3 id,[Password] 
FROM Users_changepassword 
WHERE [UserId] = 3
ORDER BY id DESC

Answer 4

You can ORDER BY column name and then LIMIT 1,1 to get the second one

edit

Whoops, didn't see the Oracle tag, sorry.
ORDER BY column name WHERE ROWNUM = 2 should work better.

Answer 5

You can try this sql where Row_number() function of the oracle sql is used

select column_name from (
 select column_name ,  
row_number() over (order by column_name  desc) as  row_num  
from table_Name ) tablex
where row_num =3

Answer 6

You could use CONNECT BY PRIOR by:

CREATE TABLE t(i INT, sal INT);
INSERT INTO t(i, sal)
SELECT 1,100 FROM dual UNION
SELECT 2,100 FROM dual UNION
SELECT 3,200 FROM dual UNION
SELECT 4,500 FROM dual UNION
SELECT 5,1000 FROM dual;

Query:

SELECT level, MAX(sal) AS sal
FROM t
--WHERE level = 2 -- set position here
CONNECT BY prior sal > sal
GROUP BY level
ORDER BY level;

DBFiddle Demo

DBFiddle Demo2

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EDIT:

Second approach is to use NTH_VALUE analytic function:

SELECT DISTINCT NTH_VALUE(sal, 2) OVER(ORDER BY sal DESC
       ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING)
FROM t;

DBFiddle Demo3