How do I select last 5 rows in a table without sorting?

Question

I want to select the last 5 records from a table in SQL Server without arranging the table in ascending or descending order.

Answer 1

When number of rows in table is less than 5 the answers of Matt Hamilton and msuvajac is Incorrect. Because a TOP N rowcount value may not be negative.
A great example can be found Here.

Answer 2

select * from table limit 5 offset (select count(*) from table) - 5;

Answer 3

Last 5 rows retrieve in mysql

---

This query working perfectly

SELECT * FROM (SELECT * FROM recharge ORDER BY sno DESC LIMIT 5)sub ORDER BY sno ASC

or

select sno from(select sno from recharge order by sno desc limit 5) as t where t.sno order by t.sno asc

Answer 4

Thanks to @Apps Tawale , Based on his answer, here's a bit of another (my) version,

To select last 5 records without an identity column,

select top 5 *, 
   RowNum = row_number() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0))    
from  [dbo].[ViewEmployeeMaster]
ORDER BY RowNum desc

Nevertheless, it has an order by, but on RowNum :)

Note(1): The above query will reverse the order of what we get when we run the main select query.

So to maintain the order, we can slightly go like:

select *, RowNum2 = row_number() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0))    
from ( 
        select top 5 *, RowNum = row_number() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0))    
        from  [dbo].[ViewEmployeeMaster]
        ORDER BY RowNum desc
     ) as t1
order by RowNum2 desc

Note(2): Without an identity column, the query takes a bit of time in case of large data

Answer 5

i am using this code:

select * from tweets where placeID = '$placeID' and id > (
    (select count(*) from tweets where placeID = '$placeID')-2)

Answer 6

DECLARE @MYVAR  NVARCHAR(100)
DECLARE @step  int
SET @step = 0;


DECLARE MYTESTCURSOR CURSOR
DYNAMIC 
FOR
SELECT col FROM [dbo].[table]
OPEN MYTESTCURSOR
FETCH LAST FROM MYTESTCURSOR INTO @MYVAR
print @MYVAR;


WHILE @step < 10
BEGIN   
    FETCH PRIOR FROM MYTESTCURSOR INTO @MYVAR
        print @MYVAR;
        SET @step = @step + 1;
END   
CLOSE MYTESTCURSOR
DEALLOCATE MYTESTCURSOR