How to Limit the Number of Records Returned in MS SQL

Limit query records returned in Microsoft SQL Server.

It can be counterproductive to get a lot of records from a query if you don't need to see all of them. The ROWCOUNT option is available in Microsoft SQL Server to limit the number of records returned by a query. Running a query without this option can take a long time if your table holds many records. Use the ROWCOUNT option to optimize your queries and improve performance in your database applications.

Instructions

1. Start Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and expand the database you want to use. Click the New Query icon to create a new query.

2. Type the following to build a Select query using the ROWCOUNT option to limit the number of records returned to four:

   SET ROWCOUNT 4;

   SELECT dbo.Products.ProductName

   FROM dbo.Products

   GO

3. Replace dbo.Products with the name of your database table. Replace ProductName with the name of the field you want to query. Replace the number 4 with the number of records you would like to have returned.

4. Press "F5" to run your query.

References

• Microsoft: SET ROWCOUNT (Transact-SQL)