Selection restriction, LIMIT operator

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

General query structure with the LIMIT operator

Comma syntax:

MySQL 8.4

SELECT table_fields
FROM table_name
LIMIT [skip_count,] row_count;

table_fields: The columns to include in the result.
table_name: The table to select data from.
skip_count: How many rows to skip before the output starts. If omitted, the output starts from the first row.
Optional
row_count: How many rows to return. If the result has fewer rows, all of them are returned.

OFFSET syntax:

MySQL 8.4

SELECT table_fields
FROM table_name
LIMIT row_count [OFFSET skip_count];

table_fields: The columns to include in the result.
table_name: The table to select data from.
row_count: How many rows to return. If the result has fewer rows, all of them are returned.
skip_count: How many rows to skip before the output starts. If omitted, the output starts from the first row.
Optional

MySQL 8.4

SELECT table_fields
FROM table_name
LIMIT row_count [OFFSET skip_count];

table_fields: The columns to include in the result.
table_name: The table to select data from.
row_count: How many rows to return. If the result has fewer rows, all of them are returned.
skip_count: How many rows to skip before the output starts. If omitted, the output starts from the first row.
Optional

Let's take a Company table:

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

MySQL 8.4
SELECT * FROM Company LIMIT 2, 3;

Or what's the same thing:

MySQL 8.4
SELECT * FROM Company LIMIT 3 OFFSET 2;

MySQL 8.4
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 8.4

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 ⚡