Question

We known that Oracle support a optimizer mode called FIRST_ROWS ，I want known whether SQL Server has some thing like this. Meaning what should I do if I want to get the first row of a select statement as soon as possible while not waiting it to complete. If it has, can I use it in database drivers like ODBC and may be ADO components?

Answer 1

Yes, it does. You can use the FAST query hint, which gives you the first x rows of a query as fast as possible, to achieve this. Have a look at this example code:

SELECT        whatever
FROM          YourTable
OPTION (FAST 1)

You can also use the FASTFIRSTROW table hint:

SELECT        whatever
FROM          YourTable
WITH (FASTFIRSTROW)