Does anyone know of a way to limit the number of rows in a select from one table before doing a join to another table.

I have a table with 50K+ records in it that I need to do a join to another table. I want to process 25 records at a time and don't want to materialize the entire recordset before doing a "FETCH FIRST 25 ROWS ONLY". I would like to get 25 rows and then join that select to the second table.

Thanks for any suggestions.

select * from (
select COLUMN_1, COLUMN_2, row_number() over(order by COLUMN_2) as ROW from YOUR_TABLE )
as LISTING where ROW <= 25

Sorry... I am pretty new to this I should have stated the following.

We are using version 7 on OS/390. I tried what you stated with no luck. I did some research, and it seams the row_number() function is not suppported.

Please let me know if I am wrong, or if there is another way.

Thanks again.