How to limit the number of records in a cursor using DB2 native SQL?

The answer to your question is to use the FETCH FIRST n ROWS ONLY clause. This clause, new as of DB2 Version 7, is appended to the end of a SELECT statement to limit the actual number of rows selected to whatever value is supplied for "n". So, for example, to retrieve employee information but to limit the number of rows that can be returned to 5 or fewer, you could code:

SELECT FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, EMPNO
FROM EMP
FETCH FIRST 5 ROWS ONLY;

Even if there are more than five rows in the EMP table, only five will be returned by this SQL statement. Of course, fewer than five rows can be returned if there are less than five rows in the table.