> I hesitate to interrupt, but at present, the presence of the ALL
> keyword on a SELECT statement doesn't tell you anything about the size
> or intended use of the result set. Are you suggesting that it should
> be used for that purpose?

I'm glad you didn't hesitate. It probably isn't a good idea to take a
keyword that is intended for one purpose and hack it into another...

Yes, that was my suggestion but I think there is most likely a better way to
accomplish what I am referring to. Especially since people would have to
start including the ALL token in their select statements to retain IB's
current optimization tendencies to favor a dataset where all rows are
fetched.

Is there anything in the SQL spec that provides a hint or indication that
the query is mostly interested in the first few records rather than the
whole dataset?

Thanks,
Jason Wharton
CPS - Mesa AZ
http://www.ibobjects.com