Question

In Oracle there is no limit, so I used this:

SELECT * 
FROM ( 
     SELECT m.*, ROWNUM r 
     FROM TABLE_NAME m  
     WHERE COL LIKE XYZ 
     ORDER BY ID ASC
     ) 
WHERE r BETWEEN 10 AND 20;

But it is still not ordered. It is ordered in the 10 from 20, but not the entire table. How can I do that?

I want to ORDER THE ENTIRE TABLE with WHERE clause and get the ranged ones. The solution above only order within the range.

---

Maybe less confusing solution (in case anyone googled here):

SELECT a.* from (
  SELECT b.*, ROWNUM r FROM ( 
    SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY id ASC  
  ) b  WHERE  (city LIKE '%abc%' OR city IS NULL)
) a where r between 5 and 10

So it is a better idea to put order right in the middle criteria, and then put other criteria in the second level, and put row number in the outter-most level.

Answer 1

You’ll need one more level of nesting as far as I know, something like:

select b.* from (
 select a.*, rownum rnum from (
  select * from foo order by id
 ) a where rownum <= 20
) b where b.rnum >= 10;

Demo:

SQL> create table foo (id number);
Table created.
SQL> insert into foo
  2   select round(dbms_random.value(0, 1000))
  3   from dual
  4   connect by level <= 15;
15 rows created.
SQL> commit;
Commit complete.

rownum gets “materialized” before the ordering, so your approach cannot work, as you’ve noticed:

SQL> select foo.*, rownum from foo order by id;

    ID     ROWNUM
---------- ----------
        24     15
       148      5
       151      2
       225      7
       234     11
       292      1
       305      4
       351      9
       383      8
       394     13
       426     12
       477     10
       553      6
       594     14
       917      3
15 rows selected.

So nest it once to get row numbers after ordering:

SQL> select a.*, rownum from (
  2   select * from foo order by id
  3  ) a;

    ID     ROWNUM
---------- ----------
        24      1
       148      2
       151      3
       225      4
       234      5
       292      6
       305      7
       351      8
       383      9
       394     10
       426     11
       477     12
       553     13
       594     14
       917     15
15 rows selected.

But you can’t do a between with this though:

SQL> select a.*, rownum from (
  2   select * from foo order by id
  3  ) a where rownum between 5 and 10;

no rows selected

This is because rownum gets a value only once a row enters the result set.
And add a second layer to remove the first lines:

SQL> select id, rnum from (
  2   select id, rownum rnum from (
  3    select id from foo order by id
  4   ) a where rownum <= 10
  5  ) b where b.rnum >= 5;

    ID   RNUM
---------- ----------
       234      5
       292      6
       305      7
       351      8
       383      9
       394     10

6 rows selected.