Question

This gives me just one row (the first one):

SELECT BLA
FROM BLA
WHERE BLA
AND ROWNUM < 2

However, I want the most recent date val; I can make that the first row this way:

SELECT BLA
FROM BLA
WHERE BLA
ORDER BY FINALDATE DESC

When I try to mix the two partial victories, though, it doesn’t work – apparently the “Select the first row only” logic fires before the order by, and then the order by is subsequently ignored.

Answer 1

This question is similar to How do I limit the number of rows returned by an Oracle query after ordering?.

It talks about how to implement a MySQL limit on an oracle database which judging by your tags and post is what you are using.

The relevant section is:

select *
from  
  ( select * 
  from emp 
  order by sal desc ) 
  where ROWNUM <= 5;