In SQL, OFFSET is a keyword used to determine which rows in a dataset to return based on their position in the query results, not by their values. It dictates the number of rows to skip from the beginning of the returned data before presenting the results. OFFSET is primarily used by automated access to page through data in the absence of page up and page down mechanisms.
OFFSET is generally used with the ORDER BY clause with a value greater than or equal to zero. The syntax for using OFFSET is as follows:
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name WHERE condition ORDER BY column_name OFFSET rows_to_skip ROWS;
The FETCH argument is used in conjunction with the OFFSET command to return a set of a number of rows. FETCH is used to retrieve the required set of rows and mostly returns the number of rows, depending on the OFFSET command. The syntax for using OFFSET and FETCH together is as follows:
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name OFFSET rows_to_skip FETCH NEXT number_of_rows ROWS ONLY;
It is important to note that OFFSET can only be used with the ORDER BY clause and cannot be used on its own. OFFSET value must be greater than or equal to zero and cannot be negative.
In summary, OFFSET is a keyword used in SQL to skip a set of records from a given table in order to retrieve a set of records according to the requirement of the database. It is used in conjunction with the ORDER BY clause and FETCH to retrieve a range of records.
