如果我们使用SQL Server >= 2005，那么我们可以只用一个选择来解决任务:

declare @t table (
    Id      int ,
    Section int,
    Moment  date
);

insert into @t values
(   1   ,   1   , '2014-01-01'),
(   2   ,   1   , '2014-01-02'),
(   3   ,   1   , '2014-01-03'),
(   4   ,   1   , '2014-01-04'),
(   5   ,   1   , '2014-01-05'),

(   6   ,   2   , '2014-02-06'),
(   7   ,   2   , '2014-02-07'),
(   8   ,   2   , '2014-02-08'),
(   9   ,   2   , '2014-02-09'),
(   10  ,   2   , '2014-02-10'),

(   11  ,   3   , '2014-03-11'),
(   12  ,   3   , '2014-03-12'),
(   13  ,   3   , '2014-03-13'),
(   14  ,   3   , '2014-03-14'),
(   15  ,   3   , '2014-03-15');


-- TWO earliest records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment) <= 2 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;


-- THREE earliest records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment) <= 3 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;


-- three LATEST records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment desc) <= 3 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;

如果你正在使用SQL 2005，你可以这样做…

SELECT rs.Field1,rs.Field2 
    FROM (
        SELECT Field1,Field2, Rank() 
          over (Partition BY Section
                ORDER BY RankCriteria DESC ) AS Rank
        FROM table
        ) rs WHERE Rank <= 10

如果你的RankCriteria有平局，那么你可能会返回超过10行，Matt的解决方案可能更适合你。

UNION操作符对您有用吗?每个部分有一个SELECT，然后将它们联合在一起。不过，我猜它只适用于固定数量的部分。

如果我们使用SQL Server >= 2005，那么我们可以只用一个选择来解决任务:

declare @t table (
    Id      int ,
    Section int,
    Moment  date
);

insert into @t values
(   1   ,   1   , '2014-01-01'),
(   2   ,   1   , '2014-01-02'),
(   3   ,   1   , '2014-01-03'),
(   4   ,   1   , '2014-01-04'),
(   5   ,   1   , '2014-01-05'),

(   6   ,   2   , '2014-02-06'),
(   7   ,   2   , '2014-02-07'),
(   8   ,   2   , '2014-02-08'),
(   9   ,   2   , '2014-02-09'),
(   10  ,   2   , '2014-02-10'),

(   11  ,   3   , '2014-03-11'),
(   12  ,   3   , '2014-03-12'),
(   13  ,   3   , '2014-03-13'),
(   14  ,   3   , '2014-03-14'),
(   15  ,   3   , '2014-03-15');


-- TWO earliest records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment) <= 2 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;


-- THREE earliest records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment) <= 3 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;


-- three LATEST records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment desc) <= 3 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;

在T-SQL中，我会这样做:

WITH TOPTEN AS (
    SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() 
    over (
        PARTITION BY [group_by_field] 
        order by [prioritise_field]
    ) AS RowNo 
    FROM [table_name]
)
SELECT * FROM TOPTEN WHERE RowNo <= 10

我是这样做的:

SELECT a.* FROM articles AS a
  LEFT JOIN articles AS a2 
    ON a.section = a2.section AND a.article_date <= a2.article_date
GROUP BY a.article_id
HAVING COUNT(*) <= 10;

更新:这个GROUP BY的例子只适用于MySQL和SQLite，因为这些数据库在GROUP BY方面比标准SQL更允许。大多数SQL实现要求选择列表中不属于聚合表达式的所有列也在GROUP BY中。