Making sense of 'OFFSET/FETCH' in SSMS 2012

Question

Just installed Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 2012 today. In familiarizing myself with the pagination feature addition of ORDER BY, I keep running into this error:

Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 5
Incorrect syntax near 'OFFSET'.
Msg 153, Level 15, State 2, Line 6
Invalid usage of the option NEXT in the FETCH statement.

Here is my query:

    SELECT SingleWomansName, NumberOfCats
    FROM CatLadies
    WHERE NumberOfCats > 1
    ORDER BY NumberOfCats
    OFFSET 10 ROWS
    FETCH NEXT 5 ROWS ONLY

I've seen plenty of how-to articles with similar syntax. What gives?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg699618.aspx

Answer 1

Are you positive you are connected to a SQL Server 2012 database? The following works:

Select Name, CatCount
From CatLadies
Order By Name
Offset 2 Rows 
Fetch Next 2 Rows Only

SQL Fiddle version

I do get the error you are seeing when I switch to SQL Server 2008

SQL Fiddle using SQL Server 2008

Answer 2

Make sure your database compatibility level is set to SQL Server 2012 (110).