Question

What is the most efficient paging solution using SQL Server 2005 against a table with around 5,000-10,000 rows? I’ve seen several out there but nothing comparing them.

Answer 1

For a table that size, use a Common-Table Expression (CTE) and ROW_NUMBER; use a small function to calculate the records to bring back based on @PageNumber and @PageSize variables (or whatever you want to call them). Simple example from one of our stored procedures:

-- calculate the record numbers that we need

DECLARE @FirstRow INT, @LastRow INT
SELECT  @FirstRow   = ((@PageNumber - 1) * @PageSize) + 1,
        @LastRow    = ((@PageNumber - 1) * @PageSize) + @PageSize

;
WITH CTE AS
(
    SELECT [Fields]
           , ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY [Field] [ASC|DESC]) as RowNumber 
    FROM [Tables]
    WHERE [Conditions, etc]
)
SELECT * 
       -- get the total records so the web layer can work out
       -- how many pages there are
       , (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM CTE) AS TotalRecords
FROM CTE
WHERE RowNumber BETWEEN @FirstRow AND @LastRow
ORDER BY RowNumber ASC