opposite of “top” in sql server, without using order by, there are no keys/indices

Question

I want to retrieve the bottom 10 results from a sql server table. I want them to be the last 10 records that were inserted, how can I do this ?

I want to write

Answer 1

If there is a auto-increment id (primary key) for that table then you can do that:

select top 10 * 
from mytable
order by id desc

Answer 2

https://stackoverflow.com/a/10636585/2858777

with bottom as(
select top 4 * from tbl order by n desc ) select * from bottom order by n

Data source:

| N | |----| | 1 | | 2 | | 3 | | 4 | | 5 | | 6 | | 7 | | 8 | | 9 | | 10 |

Output:

| N | |----| | 7 | | 8 | | 9 | | 10 |

Answer 3

In MySQL you could use select * from table LIMIT 0,10

Answer 4

You can do it using a trigger.

Save the PKs for the just-inserted row in an audit table, along with an increasing index of some kind (identity is probably enough). Delete the oldest when there are more than 10 rows.

Then join the audit table to the original table to get the full 10 rows.

Answer 5

You can't.

There is no guarantee at all that the last 10 records returned by select * from mytable will be the last 10 inserted. There is no default ordering that is used.

You need an ORDER BY on an appropriate column reflecting insert order.