One common question that often arises when working with SQL Server is how to find the row offset. In this blog post, we will explore different methods to achieve this in various versions of SQL Server.

SQL Server 2012/2014

In SQL Server 2012 and 2014, you can use the OFFSET and FETCH NEXT clauses to find the row offset. Let’s take a look at an example:

USE AdventureWorks2014

DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10
DECLARE @PageNumber INT = 6

SELECT SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID
FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail
ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID
OFFSET (@PageNumber - 1) * @RowsPerPage ROWS
FETCH NEXT @RowsPerPage ROWS ONLY

This query will return the rows starting from the specified offset and fetch the next set of rows based on the number of rows per page.

SQL Server 2008/R2 and SQL Server 2005

In SQL Server 2008/R2 and 2005, you can achieve the same result using the ROW_NUMBER() function and a subquery. Here’s an example:

DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT = 10
DECLARE @PageNumber INT = 6

SELECT SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID
FROM (
    SELECT SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) AS RowNum
    FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail
) AS SOD
WHERE SOD.RowNum BETWEEN ((@PageNumber - 1) * @RowsPerPage) + 1 AND @RowsPerPage * @PageNumber

This query uses the ROW_NUMBER() function to assign a row number to each row in the result set. The outer query then filters the rows based on the specified offset and number of rows per page.

SQL Server 2000

Although SQL Server 2000 is an older version, it’s worth mentioning how to achieve the same result in this version as well. Here’s an example:

DECLARE @RowsPerPage INT
DECLARE @PageNumber INT

SET @RowsPerPage = 10
SET @PageNumber = 6

SELECT SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID
FROM (
    SELECT TOP (@RowsPerPage) SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID
    FROM (
        SELECT TOP ((@PageNumber) * @RowsPerPage) SalesOrderDetailID, SalesOrderID, ProductID
        FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail
        ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID
    ) AS SOD
    ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID DESC
) AS SOD2
ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID ASC

This query uses nested subqueries and the TOP clause to achieve the desired result. It selects the top rows based on the specified offset and number of rows per page.

Regardless of the version of SQL Server you are using, the result of these queries will be identical. It’s important to note that the examples provided are based on the AdventureWorks database.

Now that you have learned different methods to find the row offset in SQL Server, you can apply these techniques to your own projects and improve your data retrieval capabilities.

Thank you for reading!