How to select the nth row in a SQL database table?

There are ways of doing this in optional parts of the standard, but a lot of databases support their own way of doing it.

A really good site that talks about this and other things is http://troels.arvin.dk/db/rdbms/#select-limit.

Basically, PostgreSQL and MySQL supports the non-standard:

SELECT...
LIMIT y OFFSET x 

Oracle, DB2 and MSSQL supports the standard windowing functions:

SELECT * FROM (
  SELECT
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY key ASC) AS rownumber,
    columns
  FROM tablename
) AS foo
WHERE rownumber 

PostgreSQL supports windowing functions as defined by the SQL standard, but they're awkward, so most people use (the non-standard) LIMIT / OFFSET:

SELECT
    *
FROM
    mytable
ORDER BY
    somefield
LIMIT 1 OFFSET 20;

This example selects the 21st row. OFFSET 20 is telling Postgres to skip the first 20 records. If you don't specify an ORDER BY clause, there's no guarantee which record you will get back, which is rarely useful.

I'm not sure about any of the rest, but I know SQLite and MySQL don't have any "default" row ordering. In those two dialects, at least, the following snippet grabs the 15th entry from the_table, sorting by the date/time it was added:

SELECT * FROM the_table ORDER BY added DESC LIMIT 1,15

(of course, you'd need to have an added DATETIME field, and set it to the date/time that entry was added...)

SQL 2005 and above has this feature built-in. Use the ROW_NUMBER() function. It is excellent for web-pages with a << Prev and Next >> style browsing:

Syntax:

SELECT
    *
FROM
    (
        SELECT
            ROW_NUMBER () OVER (ORDER BY MyColumnToOrderBy) AS RowNum,
            *
        FROM
            Table_1
    ) sub
WHERE
    RowNum = 23

I suspect this is wildly inefficient but is quite a simple approach, which worked on a small dataset that I tried it on.

select top 1 field
from table
where field in (select top 5 field from table order by field asc)
order by field desc

This would get the 5th item, change the second top number to get a different nth item

SQL server only (I think) but should work on older versions that do not support ROW_NUMBER().

Verify it on SQL Server:

Select top 10 * From emp 
EXCEPT
Select top 9 * From emp

This will give you 10th ROW of emp table!

1 small change: n-1 instead of n.

select *
from thetable
limit n-1, 1

Contrary to what some of the answers claim, the SQL standard is not silent regarding this subject.

Since SQL:2003, you have been able to use "window functions" to skip rows and limit result sets.

And in SQL:2008, a slightly simpler approach had been added, using
OFFSET skip ROWS FETCH FIRST n ROWS ONLY

Personally, I don't think that SQL:2008's addition was really needed, so if I were ISO, I would have kept it out of an already rather large standard.

When we used to work in MSSQL 2000, we did what we called the "triple-flip":

EDITED

DECLARE @InnerPageSize int
DECLARE @OuterPageSize int
DECLARE @Count int

SELECT @Count = COUNT() FROM <TABLE>
SET @InnerPageSize = @PageNum * @PageSize
SET @OuterPageSize = @Count - ((@PageNum - 1) * @PageSize)

IF (@OuterPageSize < 0)
    SET @OuterPageSize = 0
ELSE IF (@OuterPageSize > @PageSize)
    SET @OuterPageSize = @PageSize

DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(8000)

SET @sql = 'SELECT * FROM
(
    SELECT TOP ' + CAST(@OuterPageSize AS nvarchar(5)) + ' * FROM
    (
        SELECT TOP ' + CAST(@InnerPageSize AS nvarchar(5)) + ' * FROM <TABLE> ORDER BY  ASC
    ) AS t1 ORDER BY  DESC
) AS t2 ORDER BY  ASC'

PRINT @sql
EXECUTE sp_executesql @sql

It wasn't elegant, and it wasn't fast, but it worked.

SQL SERVER

Select n' th record from top

SELECT * FROM (
SELECT 
ID, NAME, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY ID) AS ROW
FROM TABLE 
) AS TMP 
WHERE ROW = n

select n' th record from bottom

SELECT * FROM (
SELECT 
ID, NAME, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY ID DESC) AS ROW
FROM TABLE 
) AS TMP 
WHERE ROW = n

Oracle:

select * from (select foo from bar order by foo) where ROWNUM = x

In Oracle 12c, You may use OFFSET..FETCH..ROWS option with ORDER BY

For example, to get the 3rd record from top:

SELECT * 
FROM   sometable
ORDER BY column_name
OFFSET 2 ROWS FETCH NEXT 1 ROWS ONLY;

Here is a fast solution of your confusion.

SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT N, 1

Here You may get Last row by Filling N=0, Second last by N=1, Fourth Last By Filling N=3 and so on.

This is very common question over the interview and this is Very simple ans of it.

Further If you want Amount, ID or some Numeric Sorting Order than u may go for CAST function in MySQL.

SELECT DISTINCT (`amount`) FROM cart ORDER BY CAST( `amount` AS SIGNED ) DESC LIMIT 4 , 1

Here By filling N = 4 You will be able to get Fifth Last Record of Highest Amount from CART table. You can fit your field and table name and come up with solution.

ADD:

LIMIT n,1

That will limit the results to one result starting at result n.

For example, if you want to select every 10th row in MSSQL, you can use;

SELECT * FROM (
  SELECT
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY ColumnName1 ASC) AS rownumber, ColumnName1, ColumnName2
  FROM TableName
) AS foo
WHERE rownumber % 10 = 0

Just take the MOD and change number 10 here any number you want.

For SQL Server, a generic way to go by row number is as such:

SET ROWCOUNT @row --@row = the row number you wish to work on.

For Example:

set rowcount 20   --sets row to 20th row

select meat, cheese from dbo.sandwich --select columns from table at 20th row

set rowcount 0   --sets rowcount back to all rows

This will return the 20th row's information. Be sure to put in the rowcount 0 afterward.

LIMIT n,1 doesn't work in MS SQL Server. I think it's just about the only major database that doesn't support that syntax. To be fair, it isn't part of the SQL standard, although it is so widely supported that it should be. In everything except SQL server LIMIT works great. For SQL server, I haven't been able to find an elegant solution.

Here's a generic version of a sproc I recently wrote for Oracle that allows for dynamic paging/sorting - HTH

-- p_LowerBound = first row # in the returned set; if second page of 10 rows,
--                this would be 11 (-1 for unbounded/not set)
-- p_UpperBound = last row # in the returned set; if second page of 10 rows,
--                this would be 20 (-1 for unbounded/not set)

OPEN o_Cursor FOR
SELECT * FROM (
SELECT
    Column1,
    Column2
    rownum AS rn
FROM
(
    SELECT
        tbl.Column1,
        tbl.column2
    FROM MyTable tbl
    WHERE
        tbl.Column1 = p_PKParam OR
        tbl.Column1 = -1
    ORDER BY
        DECODE(p_sortOrder, 'A', DECODE(p_sortColumn, 1, Column1, 'X'),'X'),
        DECODE(p_sortOrder, 'D', DECODE(p_sortColumn, 1, Column1, 'X'),'X') DESC,
        DECODE(p_sortOrder, 'A', DECODE(p_sortColumn, 2, Column2, sysdate),sysdate),
        DECODE(p_sortOrder, 'D', DECODE(p_sortColumn, 2, Column2, sysdate),sysdate) DESC
))
WHERE
    (rn >= p_lowerBound OR p_lowerBound = -1) AND
    (rn 

But really, isn't all this really just parlor tricks for good database design in the first place? The few times I needed functionality like this it was for a simple one off query to make a quick report. For any real work, using tricks like these is inviting trouble. If selecting a particular row is needed then just have a column with a sequential value and be done with it.