Question

If I have a mysql query like:

SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE id IN(1,2,3,4) LIMIT 2

Will mysql return the rows with id 1 and 2 or any 2 random id’s from 1,2,3,4 from the table?

Answer 1

It returns the first two records it finds within in the IN, but unless you specify order by there is no guarantee on order. The number is fixed (number of matches from your IN clause limited (<=) the number specified in LIMIT clause ), order is not. Now generally lets say this is your table “main”

ID 

1
3
2
4

This query

select * from main where id in (1,2,3,4) limit 2

returns

1
3

because thats how the values are in your table.It returns the order in which the data is stored(in a normal MySQL scenario). With order this becomes

select * from main where id in (1,2,3,4) order by id limit 2 

returns

1
2