Although the T-SQL TOP option in SQL Server 2005 doesn’t conform to the ANSI SQL standard, it nonetheless meets some important practical needs of SQL Server users; for example, in providing a tool to answer requests such as returning information about the x most recent orders. Unfortunately, the current implementation of TOP has several limitations. Its paradigm is fuzzy and not in accord with the relational model, and TOP lacks support for some key functionality that SQL Server practition...