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Oracle / PLSQL: Retrieve second lowest value from a table

Question: How can I retrieve the second lowest salary amount from a salary table?

Answer: To retrieve the second lowest salary from a salary table, you could run the following query: (please note that the subquery is sorted in ascending order)

SELECT salary_amount
FROM (select salary2.*, rownum rnum from
            (select * from salary ORDER BY salary_amount) salary2
      where rownum <= 2 )
WHERE rnum >= 2;

If you wanted to retrieve all fields from the salary table for the second lowest salary, you could run the following query: (please note that the subquery is sorted in ascending order)

SELECT *
FROM (select salary2.*, rownum rnum from
             (select * from salary ORDER BY salary_amount) salary2
      where rownum <= 2 )
WHERE rnum >= 2;