> With all the respect you deserve from me, you are oversimplifying the

issue.

>
> ROWNUM sure isn't perfect, but no more is needed for a Web application.

Web

> users seem understand/don't care if there are small glitches in the order
> of data from one request to the other.
> - They do not expect to be browsing a snapshot from the moment they

started

> the search that originated the list of pages;
> - They understand that each page is a request and that the underlying data
> can change in between;
> - They sometimes jump several/many pages forward or backwards (which makes
> the paging a harder problem);
> - They often quit/find what they want after a couple of clicks, often to
> start a new search (which makes caching all data space consuming + a
> waste of processing power);
> - They still want the site to be fast.

I am so glad you are here.
You have put in to words what I found impossible.

Thank you !

I hope you all see the reason I request ROWNUM now, it just means that the
server needs to do a select, and then reselect on the result, only 2 passes.

Pete