SQL Server - SELECT TOP Keyword

The SQL Server (Transact-SQL) SELECT TOP keyword is used to fetch specified number or percentage of records from a table. This is useful when the table contains thousands of records and returning a large dataset can impact performance.

Syntax

The syntax for using SELECT TOP keyword in SQL Server (Transact-SQL) is given below:

SELECT TOP number|percent column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name
WHERE condition(s);

Example:

Consider a database containing a table called Employee with the following records:

• To fetch top 3 records from the Employee table, the query is:

  SELECT TOP 3 * FROM Employee;
  

  
  

  This will produce the result as shown below:

  EmpID	Name	City	Age	Salary
  1	John	London	25	3000
  2	Marry	New York	24	2750
  3	Jo	Paris	27	2800

• The above result can also be achieved by using PERCENT keyword in the query.

  SELECT TOP 50 PERCENT * FROM Employee;
  

  
  

  This result of the following code will be:

  EmpID	Name	City	Age	Salary
  1	John	London	25	3000
  2	Marry	New York	24	2750
  3	Jo	Paris	27	2800

• To fetch top 3 records where the Age of the employee is greater than 25, the query will be:

  SELECT TOP 3 * FROM Employee 
  WHERE Age > 25;
  

  
  

  This will produce the result as shown below:

  EmpID	Name	City	Age	Salary
  3	Jo	Paris	27	2800
  4	Kim	Amsterdam	30	3100
  5	Ramesh	New Delhi	28	3000