Question

I was asked this question and could not come up with the answer.

Is there a way to find the entry at the first row and first column in a table?

(In matrix notation, that would be the [1,1]th location)

Answer 1

There were a lot of good feedback related to the “first row” part of thge question. But as far as the “first column” goes, you can try one of the following options:

1. You can use database data dictionary to get the first column of the table. In Oracle, for example the query would be:

   select column_name  
   from   user_tab_columns 
   where  table_name='YOUR_TABLE_NAME' 
   and    column_id=1
   

2. If you use JDBC or some other database access API, most of these APIS would allow you to do "select *" and then you could get first column by accessing zero (or first) element of you result set.