🏆 TOP – Get Only the First Few Rows in SQL

🏆 TOP – Get Only the First Few Rows in SQL

🔧 Quick Syntax

SELECT TOP number column1, column2
FROM table_name
ORDER BY column_name DESC;

This tells SQL:

“Give me just the first few rows from the sorted results — like a highlight reel.”

Note: TOP works in SQL Server. For MySQL or PostgreSQL, use LIMIT (we’ll cover that too).

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🧾 Here’s the Table You’re Working With

Imagine you’ve got an orders table like this:

order_id	customer_name	total_amount
1	Brill Venn	15.99
2	Larka Tove	45.00
3	Brill Venn	15.99
4	Milo Kresh	72.50
5	Vesh Luro	10.00
6	Tola Jinn	29.99

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✅ Suppose You Want to See the Top 3 Highest Orders

SELECT TOP 3 customer_name, total_amount
FROM orders
ORDER BY total_amount DESC;

💡 Output:

Milo Kresh    72.50
Larka Tove    45.00
Tola Jinn     29.99

Here you sorted the orders from highest to lowest, and TOP 3 gave you the first three rows. Great for dashboards, leaderboards, or best-of lists.

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✅ Suppose You Want the 2 Smallest Orders

SELECT TOP 2 customer_name, total_amount
FROM orders
ORDER BY total_amount ASC;

💡 Output:

Vesh Luro     10.00
Brill Venn    15.99

This one sorted the data from smallest to largest and gave you the two cheapest orders. Same logic, just in reverse.

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🧃 Recap – What You Learned

• TOP limits how many rows your query returns
• Combine with ORDER BY to choose what “top” really means
• Great for bestsellers, highest spenders, top viewed items, and more
• Works in SQL Server – for MySQL/PostgreSQL use LIMIT instead