Characteristics Of

Any argument to FIRST and SKIP that is not an integer literal or an SQL parameter must be enclosed in parentheses.This implies that a subquery expression must be enclosed in two pairs of parentheses.
SKIP 0 is allowed but pointless.
FIRST 0 is also allowed and returns an empty set.
Negative SKIP and/or FIRST values result in an error.
If a SKIP lands past the end of the result set, an empty set is returned.
If the number of rows in the result set (or the remainder left after a SKIP) is less than the value of the m argument supplied for FIRST, that smaller number of rows is returned.These are valid results, not error conditions.

The following query will return the first 10 names from the People table:
```
select first 10 id, name from People
  order by name asc
```
The following query will return everything but the first 10 names:
```
select skip 10 id, name from People
  order by name asc
```

And this one returns the last 10 rows.Notice the double parentheses:

select skip ((select count(*) - 10 from People))
  id, name from People
  order by name asc

This query returns rows 81 to 100 of the People table:

select first 20 skip 80 id, name from People
  order by name asc