Question

I am trying to find the n largest numbers in a particular column in SQL Server.

We can find the largest value in a column and the 2nd largest value easily.

But how do I find say, 5 largest values in a column ?

Answer 1

In MySql you can use [LIMIT {[offset,] row_count }] to do this like so:

...
ORDER BY SomeField DESC
LIMIT @n; 

For SQL Server you can use the TOP(n) to get the top n:

SELECT TOP(@n) SomeFieldName
FROM TABLE
ORDER BY SomeField DESC

For example:

SELECT TOP 5 items_sold
FROM tbl_PRODUCT 
ORDER BY items_sold dESC

Update: If you have another table families with a foreign key family_ID to products table, and you want to find all products with the top n family id’s. Then you can dot this:

   SELECT *
   FROM Products WHERE family_ID  IN
   (
       SELECT TOP 5 family_ID
       FROM families
       ORDER BY family_ID DESC
   )

Update 2: The topmost product in each family:

;WITH cte
AS
(
    SELECT *, 
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY family_ID ORDER BY items_sold DESC) row_num
    FROM @Products
)
SELECT * FROM cte
where row_num = 1
Order by family_ID

Here is alive demo