Question

Let’s say I have table with following columns:

• id
• created_at

The default sort on this table is “created_at DESC, id DESC”.

Then for example I want to query for 5 records newer than given date, but
newer means if there are 100 newer in total I want the 5 that are the oldest
in this group (are the closest to given date).

So the way I would do it is – I would change the sort to “created_at ASC, id ASC”
and then query for WHERE created_at > date LIMIT 5.

The problem is that I would like to return it in the default sort. I am thinking about
some subquery but I am not sure what would be the best solution. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Your though was good, enclose your query (as a subquery) in another one:

SELECT *
FROM
  ( SELECT ...
    FROM tableX
    WHERE created_at > @CheckDate 
    ORDER BY created_at ASC, id ASC
    LIMIT 5
  ) AS tmp
ORDER BY created_at DESC, id DESC