How to fetch the first 2 or 3 rows from Mysql DB using Mysql PHP function?

Question

How to fetch the first two rows from Mysql DB using Mysql PHP function? Is there any function which can give me first 2 or 3 rows from the select query we fired?

Answer 1

Use LIMIT. From the manual, to retrieve 3 rows:

SELECT * FROM tbl LIMIT 3; 

Or to retrieve rows 6-15:

SELECT * FROM tbl LIMIT 5,10;

For this query (i.e. with no constraint) if you are not using an ORDER BY clause your results will be ordered as they appear in the database.

Answer 2

You can use the limit clause in your query:

select * from your_table limit 3

This will select the first three rows.

And:

select * from your_table limit 5, 3

The later will select rows starting from 5 and return three rows.

Answer 3

You have 2 options:

1. Fire a query to select all the rows and then select 2 or 3 rows as needed using PHP.
2. Fire a query to select only the necessary number of rows using LIMIT clause.

The 2nd option is preferable.