Question

The query remains constant, but the offset varies.

SELECT NAME from tbl WHERE alphabet_index='A' limit 880,1;
SELECT NAME from tbl WHERE alphabet_index='A' limit 1760,1;
SELECT NAME from tbl WHERE alphabet_index='A' limit 2640,1;
....
SELECT NAME from tbl WHERE alphabet_index='A' limit 34320,1;

Is there a better way to do this without having to run N queries with different offsets?

Update: I am trying to build name ranges as an index for a drill down. So if an alphabet_index has 50000 records and I would like to display 40 ranges, I am calculating offset = total/rangeCount. My desired end result would be

AA...-AA...
AA...-AB...
AB...-AC...
AC...-AC...
AD...-AF...
...
...
AW...-AZ...

Answer 1

You can do a varying offset query in a single query like this

select NAME from 
   (select @row:=@row+1 as row, t.NAME from 
    tbl t, (select @row := 0) y 
    where alphabet_index='A' order by alphabet_index) z 
where row % 880 = 1;

This will add a unique integer id to each row via the @row variable. Then it will select a row every other 880 via the modulo operator and that variable. An order by clause is required to get repeatable behavior, else the result would be effectively random.