ClickHouse/docs/en/sql-reference/statements/select/limit-by.md

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---
slug: /en/sql-reference/statements/select/limit-by
sidebar_label: LIMIT BY
---
# LIMIT BY Clause
A query with the `LIMIT n BY expressions` clause selects the first `n` rows for each distinct value of `expressions`. The key for `LIMIT BY` can contain any number of [expressions](../../../sql-reference/syntax.md#syntax-expressions).
ClickHouse supports the following syntax variants:
- `LIMIT [offset_value, ]n BY expressions`
- `LIMIT n OFFSET offset_value BY expressions`
During query processing, ClickHouse selects data ordered by sorting key. The sorting key is set explicitly using an [ORDER BY](order-by.md#select-order-by) clause or implicitly as a property of the table engine (row order is only guaranteed when using [ORDER BY](order-by.md#select-order-by), otherwise the row blocks will not be ordered due to multi-threading). Then ClickHouse applies `LIMIT n BY expressions` and returns the first `n` rows for each distinct combination of `expressions`. If `OFFSET` is specified, then for each data block that belongs to a distinct combination of `expressions`, ClickHouse skips `offset_value` number of rows from the beginning of the block and returns a maximum of `n` rows as a result. If `offset_value` is bigger than the number of rows in the data block, ClickHouse returns zero rows from the block.
:::note
`LIMIT BY` is not related to [LIMIT](../../../sql-reference/statements/select/limit.md). They can both be used in the same query.
:::
If you want to use column numbers instead of column names in the `LIMIT BY` clause, enable the setting [enable_positional_arguments](../../../operations/settings/settings.md#enable-positional-arguments).
## Examples
Sample table:
``` sql
CREATE TABLE limit_by(id Int, val Int) ENGINE = Memory;
INSERT INTO limit_by VALUES (1, 10), (1, 11), (1, 12), (2, 20), (2, 21);
```
Queries:
``` sql
SELECT * FROM limit_by ORDER BY id, val LIMIT 2 BY id
```
``` text
┌─id─┬─val─┐
│ 1 │ 10 │
│ 1 │ 11 │
│ 2 │ 20 │
│ 2 │ 21 │
└────┴─────┘
```
``` sql
SELECT * FROM limit_by ORDER BY id, val LIMIT 1, 2 BY id
```
``` text
┌─id─┬─val─┐
│ 1 │ 11 │
│ 1 │ 12 │
│ 2 │ 21 │
└────┴─────┘
```
The `SELECT * FROM limit_by ORDER BY id, val LIMIT 2 OFFSET 1 BY id` query returns the same result.
The following query returns the top 5 referrers for each `domain, device_type` pair with a maximum of 100 rows in total (`LIMIT n BY + LIMIT`).
``` sql
SELECT
domainWithoutWWW(URL) AS domain,
domainWithoutWWW(REFERRER_URL) AS referrer,
device_type,
count() cnt
FROM hits
GROUP BY domain, referrer, device_type
ORDER BY cnt DESC
LIMIT 5 BY domain, device_type
LIMIT 100
```