SQL Select First

By using SELECT FIRST statement, we can fetch first value of specified column from existing table. SELECT FIRST statement work in MS Access database only.

Syntax -

SELECT FIRST(column_name) FROM table_name; 

• column_name - Specifies the name of the column.

Syntax for creating user defined name to the required column –

SELECT FIRST(column_name) AS user_defined_name FROM table_name; 

• user_defined_name- Specifies the name of the output in result-set which is defined by user.

Example

Let us consider below table(s) as an example table(s) to frame the SQL query for getting the desired results.

employee_details -

emp_id	emp_name	designation	manager_id	date_of_hire	salary	dept_id
001	Employee1	Director		2019-07-11	45000.00	1000
002	Employee2	Director		2019-07-11	40000.00	2000
003	Employee3	Manager	Employee1	2019-07-11	27000.00	1000
004	Employee4	Manager	Employee2	2019-10-08	25000.00	2000
005	Employee5	Analyst	Employee3	2019-07-11	20000.00	1000
006	Employee6	Analyst	Employee3	2019-10-08	18000.00	1000
007	Employee7	Clerk	Employee3	2019-07-11	15000.00	1000
008	Employee8	Salesman	Employee4	2019-09-09	14000.00	2000
009	Employee9	Salesman	Employee4	2019-10-08	13000.00	2000

Scenario – Get first value of the required column from table.

Requirement – Get first value of the emp_name column in employee_details table. The query was as follows –

SELECT FIRST(emp_name) FROM employee_details; 

By executing above query, we can get output like as shown in below –

emp_name
Employee1

Scenario – Get first value of the required column from table with user defined column name.

Requirement – Getting first row value of salary and name the column as first_salary in employee_details table. The query was as follows –

 SELECT FIRST(salary) FROM employee_details AS first_salary; 

By executing above query, we can get output like as shown in below –

first_salary
45000.00

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