At 11:02 AM 12/20/00 -0500, Leyne, Sean wrote:

>David,
>
>First let me say that I believe that IB/Firebird needs to support the
>TOP {x} syntax and your top 10/100 example is right on point and is a
>real shortcoming for IB/Firebird, but...
>

It isn't a deficiency of the Engine. GDML and BLR have supported
a "first n" clause since day 0. And on that unfortunate day that
the code transfered to Borland, the optimizer used that as a hint
to use index navigation rather than sort (I implemented the feature
for dBase emulation).

The original Interbase philosphy towards SQL was "we don't fix it,
we don't extend it, we just implemented it." Innovation was done
in GDML. The basic idea was that if wasn't portable, why break
the SQL standard? We took great pains to allow "seamless" (gag gag)
integration of GDML and SQL so that the portable stuff was actual
portable.

Borland's marketters (may they all have their lifesavings invested
in Borland) decided to deep-6 GDML in favor of SQL. This wasn't
completely unreasonable, since the world had bought the fantasy
that SQL was a standard rather than a theme. But what they should
have done, and didn't, was to move functionality accessible
exclusively from GDML to "SQL".

By all means invent and/or steal a "first" or "top" syntax and map
it forthwith and directly into blr_first. Just remember that the
more ughly the syntax and obscure the semantics the more likely
that the SQL committee will bless it.



Jim Starkey