TOP
Enhancements
The 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 ...
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