SQL Q: Ten highest rows

Friends,

A SQL question (not PL/SQL - I know how to do it in PL/SQL, but it is pretty clumsy).

Can you select e.g. ten rows with the highest value of a certain column ?

It is not allowed to put "order by" in a subquery, e.g. :

select val
  from (select val from tab order by val)  where rownum < 11),

and rownum is applied before the group by, (e.g.:

select val
  from tab
 where rownum < 11
order by val

Thanks a lot. Received on Mon Jun 19 2000 - 13:09:02 CDT