Hi,

I am not sure whether I am posting to the correct group; If not,
please tell
me which groups are better.

My experience has been mainly with Oracle. In Oracle (9i+) there is an
optimizer
mode name FIRST_ROWS (Now FIRST_ROWS_N), typically used in OLTP
environments.

It hints that the database should favor returning the first N rows of
a query
as soon as possible; The rest of the query can continue running in the
background.
Typically, this mode favors indexes over full-table scans.

The idea is that the user sees a result set quickly.

Is there something similar in MSSQL 2005? If so, any info or links
will
be greatly appreciated.



Thanks,
QZ

"basis_consultant (AT) hotmail (DOT) com" wrote:
Yes there is. You can use the query hint OPTION (FAST <number_rows>), as
in:

SELECT my_column
FROM my_table
OPTION (FAST 10)

You can check Books Online (BOL) for more information.
--
Gert-Jan

basis_consultant (AT) hotmail (DOT) com (basis_consultant (AT) hotmail (DOT) com) writes:
Add "OPTION (FAST n)" at the end of the WHERE clause. n is a number >= 1.

Whether it is a good idea, I don't know. It may be useful for something
that fills a form, as the user can get the first set of rows to look at
quickly. When you this hint, the otimizer will be less prone to use
stopping operators like hash joins.






--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel (AT) sommarskog (DOT) se

Links for SQL Server Books Online:
SQL 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc514207.aspx
SQL 2005: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb895970.aspx
SQL 2000: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx