Select Only 3 Ordered Rows on a MySQL Table

For this, you can use ORDER BY clause along with LIMIT. Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable1551
   -> (
   -> EmployeeId int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
   -> EmployeeName varchar(20)
   -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.52 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable1551(EmployeeName) values('Chris');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.25 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1551(EmployeeName) values('Robert');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1551(EmployeeName) values('Mike');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.12 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1551(EmployeeName) values('Sam');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.11 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1551(EmployeeName) values('David');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.09 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1551(EmployeeName) values('Adam');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.11 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select * from DemoTable1551;

This will produce the following output −

+------------+--------------+
| EmployeeId | EmployeeName |
+------------+--------------+
|          1 | Chris        |
|          2 | Robert       |
|          3 | Mike         |
|          4 | Sam          |
|          5 | David        |
|          6 | Adam         |
+------------+--------------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to select only 3 ordered rows in a MySQL table −

mysql> select * from DemoTable1551
   -> order by EmployeeId desc limit 0,3;

This will produce the following output −

+------------+--------------+
| EmployeeId | EmployeeName |
+------------+--------------+
|          6 | Adam         |
|          5 | David        |
|          4 | Sam          |
+------------+--------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)