Equivalent of LIMIT for DB2

Solution 1:

Using FETCH FIRST [n] ROWS ONLY:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/dzichelp/v2r2/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.db29.doc.perf/db2z_fetchfirstnrows.htm

SELECT LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME, EMPNO, SALARY
  FROM EMP
  ORDER BY SALARY DESC
  FETCH FIRST 20 ROWS ONLY;

To get ranges, you'd have to use ROW_NUMBER() (since v5r4) and use that within the WHERE clause: (stolen from here: http://www.justskins.com/forums/db2-select-how-to-123209.html)

SELECT code, name, address
FROM ( 
  SELECT row_number() OVER ( ORDER BY code ) AS rid, code, name, address
  FROM contacts
  WHERE name LIKE '%Bob%' 
  ) AS t
WHERE t.rid BETWEEN 20 AND 25;

Solution 2:

Developed this method:

You NEED a table that has an unique value that can be ordered.

If you want rows 10,000 to 25,000 and your Table has 40,000 rows, first you need to get the starting point and total rows:

int start = 40000 - 10000;

int total = 25000 - 10000;

And then pass these by code to the query:

SELECT * FROM 
(SELECT * FROM schema.mytable 
ORDER BY userId DESC fetch first {start} rows only ) AS mini 
ORDER BY mini.userId ASC fetch first {total} rows only

Solution 3:

Support for OFFSET and LIMIT was recently added to DB2 for i 7.1 and 7.2. You need the following DB PTF group levels to get this support:

SF99702 level 9 for IBM i 7.2
SF99701 level 38 for IBM i 7.1

See here for more information: OFFSET and LIMIT documentation, DB2 for i Enhancement Wiki

Solution 4:

Here's the solution I came up with:

select FIELD from TABLE where FIELD > LASTVAL order by FIELD fetch first N rows only;

By initializing LASTVAL to 0 (or '' for a text field), then setting it to the last value in the most recent set of records, this will step through the table in chunks of N records.

Solution 5:

@elcool's solution is a smart idea, but you need to know total number of rows (which can even change while you are executing the query!). So I propose a modified version, which unfortunately needs 3 subqueries instead of 2:

select * from (
    select * from (
        select * from MYLIB.MYTABLE
        order by MYID asc 
        fetch first {last} rows only 
        ) I 
    order by MYID desc
    fetch first {length} rows only
    ) II
order by MYID asc

where {last} should be replaced with row number of the last record I need and {length} should be replaced with the number of rows I need, calculated as last row - first row + 1.

E.g. if I want rows from 10 to 25 (totally 16 rows), {last} will be 25 and {length} will be 25-10+1=16.