Row numbers in query result using Microsoft Access

Question

I always use this query in sql server to get Row number in a table:

SELECT *
FROM   (SELECT *,
               Row_number()
                 OVER(
                    


        

Answer 1

MS-Access doesn't support ROW_NUMBER(). Use TOP 1:

SELECT TOP 1 *
FROM [MyTable]
ORDER BY [MyIdentityCOlumn]

If you need the 15th row - MS-Access has no simple, built-in, way to do this. You can simulate the rownumber by using reverse nested ordering to get this:

SELECT TOP 1 *
FROM (
  SELECT TOP 15 *
  FROM [MyTable]
  ORDER BY [MyIdentityColumn] ) t
ORDER BY [MyIdentityColumn] DESC

Answer 2

Though this is an old question, this has worked for me, but I've never tested its efficiency...

SELECT 
    (SELECT COUNT(t1.SourceID) 
     FROM [SourceTable] t1 
     WHERE t1.SourceID<t2.SourceID) AS RowID, 
    t2.field2, 
    t2.field3, 
    t2.field4, 
    t2.field5
FROM 
    SourceTable AS t2
ORDER BY 
    t2.SourceID;

Some advantages of this method:

• It doesn't rely on the order of the table, either - the RowID is calculated on its actual value and those that are less than it.
• This method can be applied to any (primary key) type (e.g. Number, String or Date).
• This method is fairly SQL agnostic, or requires very little adaptation.

Final Thoughts

Though this will work with practically any data type, I must emphasise that, for some, it may create other problems. For instance, with strings, consider:

ID     Description    ROWID
aaa    Aardvark           1
bbb    Bear               2
ccc    Canary             3

If I were to insert: bba Boar, then the Canary RowID will change...

ID     Description    ROWID
aaa    Aardvark           1
bbb    Bear               2
bba    Boar               3
ccc    Canary             4

Answer 3

I might be late. Simply add a new field ID in the table with type AutoNumber. This will generate unique IDs and can utilize in Access too

Answer 4

Another way to assign a row number in a query is to use the DCount function.

SELECT *, DCount("[ID]","[mytable]","[ID]<=" & [ID]) AS row_id
FROM [mytable]
WHERE row_id=15

Answer 5

Since I am sorting alphabetically on a string field and NOT by ID, the Count(*) and DCOUNT() approaches didn't work for me. My solution was to write a function that returns the Row Number:

Option Compare Database
Option Explicit
Private Rst As Recordset

Public Function GetRowNum(ID As Long) As Long
  If Rst Is Nothing Then
    Set Rst = CurrentDb.OpenRecordset("SELECT ID FROM FileList ORDER BY RealName")
  End If
  Rst.FindFirst "ID=" & ID
  GetRowNum = Rst.AbsolutePosition + 1
' Release the Rst 1 sec after it's last use
'------------------------------------------
  SetTimer Application.hWndAccessApp, 1, 1000, AddressOf ReleaseRst  
End Function


Private Sub ReleaseRst(ByVal hWnd As LongPtr, ByVal uMsg As Long, ByVal nIDEEvent As Long, ByVal dwTime As Long)
  KillTimer Application.hWndAccessApp, 1 
  Set Rst = Nothing
End Sub

Answer 6

Thanks for your solutions above! DCount did the trick for me too!

I had to use a combination of date columns and a unique identifier for the sorting portion of it (as well as some additional conditions), so here is what I ended up doing: 1) I had to check if DateColumnA was null, then check if DateColumnB was null, then use DateColumnC; then, if multiple records have the same date value, they all end up with the same id! 2) So, I figured I would use the integer unique ID of the table, and add it up to the time as "minutes". This will always provide different results 3) Finally, the logic above results in the count starting in 0... so just add 1!

SELECT 
 1+DCount("[RequestID]","[Request]","Archived=0 and ProjectPhase <> 2 and iif(isnull(DateColumnA)=true,iif(isnull(DateColumnB)=true,DateColumnC,DateColumnB),DateColumnA)+(RequestID/3600) < #" & if(isnull(DateColumnA)=true,iif(isnull(DateColumnB)=true,DateColumnC,DateColumnB),DateColumnA) + (RequestID/3600) & "#") AS RowID, 
FROM 
 Request
ORDER BY 1

I hope this helps you out!