Selection restriction, LIMIT operator

The LIMIT operator allows you to extract a specific a range of records from one or more tables.

General query structure with the LIMIT operator

Comma syntax:

MySQL 8.1
SELECT table_fields
FROM table_name
LIMIT [number_of_skipped_records,] number_of_records_to_output;

OFFSET syntax:

MySQL 8.1
SELECT table_fields
FROM table_name
LIMIT number_of_records_to_output [OFFSET number_of_skipped_records];

If you do not specify the number of skipped records, they will be counted from the beginning of the table.

MySQL 8.1
SELECT table_fields
FROM table_name
LIMIT number_of_records_to_output [OFFSET number_of_skipped_records];

If you do not specify OFFSET, they will be counted from the beginning of the table.

Let's take a Company table:

To output lines 3 to 5, you need to use this request:

MySQL 8.1
SELECT * FROM Company LIMIT 2, 3;

Or what's the same thing:

MySQL 8.1
SELECT * FROM Company LIMIT 3 OFFSET 2;

MySQL 8.1
SELECT * FROM Company LIMIT 3 OFFSET 2;

The query returns the following selection:

This query skips the first two rows of the table (1, 2), and then outputs the next three entries (3, 4, 5).

Now try it yourself ⚡️

MySQL 8.1

SELECT * FROM Company
LIMIT 3 OFFSET 2

Number of skipped records

Number of records to output

Select the rows of the table to see how the query is changing ⚡