Getting the first record

Question

I have a table containing infor about employees promotion details.Problem is that the table was so badly designed that the only way for me to know the first promotion that an employee got in that year was the way it was inserted.Hence below for Manohar ,91 was the first promotion in the year 2001 and
for Sanohar it is 81.
Wondering is there sql query throught which I can get hold of the first record that was inserted.
YEAR____EMPCODE_____NAME_______POSITION
2001______02_________Manohar________91
2001______02_________Manohar________01
2001______02_________Manohar________07
2001______03_________Sasohar________81
2001______03_________Sasohar________84
2001______03_________Sasohar________87

Answer 1

this migth be of help:
SQL> select rowid, year, empcode, name, position
  2    from employees;
ROWID              YEAR EM NAME       PO
AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAA 2001 02 Manohar    91
AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAB 2001 02 Manohar    01
AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAC 2001 02 Manohar    07
AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAD 2001 03 Sasohar    81
AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAE 2001 03 Sasohar    84
AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAF 2001 03 Sasohar    87
6 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL> select emp.year, emp.empcode, emp.name, emp.position,
  2         emp.promotion, rowid
  3    from (select year, empcode, name, position,
  4                 rank() over (partition by empcode order by rowid) promotion
  5            from employees) emp
  6  /
YEAR EM NAME       PO  PROMOTION ROWID
2001 02 Manohar    91          1 AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAA
2001 02 Manohar    01          2 AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAB
2001 02 Manohar    07          3 AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAC
2001 03 Sasohar    81          1 AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAD
2001 03 Sasohar    84          2 AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAE
2001 03 Sasohar    87          3 AAD8PAAAJAAAAzwAAF
6 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SQL> note: you can use the rowid to identify which row has been inserted first. if this is something that you want to get the first row that was inserted.