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

There is a good overview of different paging techniques at http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/PagingLarge.aspx

I've used ROWCOUNT method quite often mostly with SQL Server 2000 (will work with 2005 & 2008 too, just measure performance compared to ROW_NUMBER), it's lightning fast, but you need to make sure that the sorted column(s) have (mostly) unique values.

Answer 2

Try this approach:

SELECT TOP @offset a.*
FROM (select top @limit b.*, COUNT(*) OVER() totalrows 
        from TABLENAME b order by id asc) a
ORDER BY id desc;

Answer 3

MSDN: ROW_NUMBER (Transact-SQL)

Returns the sequential number of a row within a partition of a result set, starting at 1 for the first row in each partition.

The following example returns rows with numbers 50 to 60 inclusive in the order of the OrderDate.

WITH OrderedOrders AS
(
    SELECT
        ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY FirstName DESC) AS RowNumber, 
        FirstName, LastName, ROUND(SalesYTD,2,1) AS "Sales YTD"
    FROM [dbo].[vSalesPerson]
) 
SELECT RowNumber, 
    FirstName, LastName, Sales YTD 
FROM OrderedOrders 
WHERE RowNumber > 50 AND RowNumber < 60;

  RowNumber FirstName    LastName               SalesYTD
  --- -----------  ---------------------- -----------------
  1   Linda        Mitchell               4251368.54
  2   Jae          Pak                    4116871.22
  3   Michael      Blythe                 3763178.17
  4   Jillian      Carson                 3189418.36
  5   Ranjit       Varkey Chudukatil      3121616.32
  6   José         Saraiva                2604540.71
  7   Shu          Ito                    2458535.61
  8   Tsvi         Reiter                 2315185.61
  9   Rachel       Valdez                 1827066.71
  10  Tete         Mensa-Annan            1576562.19
  11  David        Campbell               1573012.93
  12  Garrett      Vargas                 1453719.46
  13  Lynn         Tsoflias               1421810.92
  14  Pamela       Ansman-Wolfe           1352577.13

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

Use case wise the following seem to be easy to use and fast. Just set the page number.

use AdventureWorks
DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10, @PageNumber INT = 6;
with result as(
SELECT SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) AS RowNum
FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail
where 1=1
)
select SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID from result
WHERE result.RowNum BETWEEN ((@PageNumber-1)*@RowsPerPage)+1
AND @RowsPerPage*(@PageNumber)

also without CTE

use AdventureWorks
DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10, @PageNumber INT = 6
SELECT SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID
FROM (
SELECT SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) AS RowNum
FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail
where 1=1
 ) AS SOD
WHERE SOD.RowNum BETWEEN ((@PageNumber-1)*@RowsPerPage)+1
AND @RowsPerPage*(@PageNumber)

Answer 6

This bit gives you ability to paginate using SQL Server, and newer versions of MySQL and carries the total number of rows in every row. Uses your pimary key to count number of unique rows.

WITH T AS
(  
  SELECT TABLE_ID, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY TABLE_ID) AS RN
  , (SELECT COUNT(TABLE_ID) FROM TABLE) AS TOTAL 
  FROM TABLE (NOLOCK)
)

SELECT T2.FIELD1, T2.FIELD2, T2.FIELD3, T.TOTAL 
FROM TABLE T2 (NOLOCK)
INNER JOIN T ON T2.TABLE_ID=T.TABLE_ID
WHERE T.RN >= 100
AND T.RN < 200