Answer by Sumesh TG for How do I limit the number of rows returned by an Oracle query after ordering?

For each row returned by a query, the ROWNUM pseudocolumn returns a number indicating the order in which Oracle selects the row from a table or set of joined rows. The first row selected has a ROWNUM of 1, the second has 2, and so on.

  SELECT * FROM sometable1 so    WHERE so.id IN (    SELECT so2.id from sometable2 so2    WHERE ROWNUM <=5    )    AND ORDER BY so.somefield AND ROWNUM <= 100 

I have implemented this in oracle server 11.2.0.1.0