Sql server top query

Question

I am experiencing some strange behaviour and I really don't have test date/ environments, so Will this query return top 5 rows ordered by count, or will it take top 5 rows and sort them then. What would be the query for the first?

  select top 5 l.userId, count(*) "count" from Log l
  where ...
  group by l.userId
  order by "count" desc

Answer 1

It couldn't possibly have taken more than a few minutes to create some test data, but yes, that query does what you want it to do. TOP does its job after ORDER.

Answer 2

It will return top 5 rows after group by and order by.

More on this

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189463.aspx

It will return top 5 results from the query you have without using top.

Answer 3

This will execute whatever query you define, then return the first five rows of that query.