Get the last N rows in the database in order?

Question

Let\'s say I have the following database table:

 record_id | record_date | record_value
-----------+-------------+--------------
         1 | 2010-05-01  |           


        

Answer 1

Why don't you just order the opposite way?

SELECT * FROM mytable ORDER BY record_date DESC LIMIT 5;

If you don't want to flip back correctly in the application, you can nest a query and flip them twice:

SELECT *
    FROM (SELECT * FROM mytable ORDER BY record_date DESC LIMIT 5)
    ORDER BY record_date ASC;

...which turns out to be a pretty cheap operation.