PROBLEM WITH ROWNUM

Question

Hello everybody,
I'm using oracle 8i server. And I'm trying to get two rows out of many, that have largest value for 1st column of the table. I.E Ist and 2nd maximum value.
The problem is when I'm using
"select * from table
where rownum <= 2
order by 1 desc"
I'm not getting first 2 rows having largest values in 1st column.
Instead I get two rows that aren't having the largest value.
can anybody help me on this error ?
Or can anybody suggest me a way to do that ?
is this way the correct one ?

Answer 1

I appreciate everybody answers, well on step ahead answer to it, If you wanna to use '=' OR a situation where you want to know the second/specific position records then rownum wont work for you
try this...
-- for Second Position
select id from (select id , dense_rank() (Over Partition by ID Order by ID desc) Rank
from table
order by id desc) where rank = 2
Or
-- In case upto 2 nd position
select alias.id from (select id , dense_rank() (Over Partition by ID Order by ID desc) Rank
from table
order by id desc) where rank <= 2
-- In case above 2nd position
select alias.id from (select id , dense_rank() (Over Partition by ID Order by ID desc) Rank
from table
order by id desc) where rank >= 2
Regards,
Srichan.