September 2010
Intermediate to advanced
1704 pages
111h 8m
English
TOP EnhancementsThe TOP clause allows you to specify the number or percentage of rows to be returned by a SELECT statement. SQL Server 2005 introduced the capability for the TOP clause to also be used in INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements. The syntax was also enhanced to allow the use of a numeric expression for the number value rather than having to use a hard-coded number.
The syntax for the TOP clause is as follows:

numeric_expression must be specified in parentheses. Specifying constants without parentheses is supported in SELECT queries only for backward compatibility. The parentheses around the expression are always required when ...