SQL FIRST()Function

FIRST() Function

The FIRST() function returns the value of the first record in the specified column.

SQL FIRST() Syntax

SELECT FIRST(column_name) FROM table_name;

Note:Only MS Access supports the FIRST() function.

SQL FIRST() Workaround in SQL Server, MySQL, and Oracle

SQL Server Syntax

SELECT TOP 1 column_name FROM table_name
ORDER BY column_name ASC;

Example

SELECT TOP 1 name FROM Websites
ORDER BY id ASC;

MySQL Syntax

SELECT column_name FROM table_name
ORDER BY column_name ASC
LIMIT 1;

Example

SELECT name FROM Websites
ORDER BY id ASC
LIMIT 1;

Oracle Syntax

SELECT column_name FROM table_name
ORDER BY column_name ASC
WHERE ROWNUM <=1;

Example

SELECT name FROM Websites
ORDER BY id ASC
WHERE ROWNUM <=1;

Demo Database

In this tutorial, we will use the EXAMPLE sample database.

Here is the data selected from the "Websites" table:

+----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+
| id | name         | url                       | alexa | country |
+----+--------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+
| 1  | Google       | https://www.google.cm/    | 1     | USA     |
| 2  | 淘宝          | https://www.taobao.com/   | 13    | CN      |
| 3  | Example      | http://www.example.com/    | 4689  | CN      |
| 4  | 微博          | http://weibo.com/         | 20    | CN      |
| 5  | Facebook     | https://www.facebook.com/ | 3     | USA     |
|  6 | 百度         | https://www.baidu.com/    |     4 | CN      |
|  7 | stackoverflow | http://stackoverflow.com/ |     0 | IND     |
+----+---------------+---------------------------+-------+---------+

SQL FIRST() Example

The following SQL statement selects the value of the first record in the "name" column of the "Websites" table:

Example

SELECT name AS FirstSite FROM Websites LIMIT 1;

Executing the above SQL produces the following result:

Other Extensions