TABLE table_name  [ORDER BY column_name ] [LIMIT number  [OFFSET number ]] 

The TABLE  statement in some ways acts like SELECT . Given the existance of a table named t , the following two statements produce identical output: 

TABLE t; SELECT * FROM t; 

You can order and limit the number of rows produced by TABLE  using ORDER BY  and LIMIT  clauses, respectively. These function identically to the same clauses when used with SELECT  (including an optional OFFSET  clause with LIMIT ), as you can see here: 

mysql> TABLE t; +----+----+ | a | b | +----+----+ | 1 | 2 | | 6 | 7 | | 9 | 5 | | 10 | -4 | | 11 | -1 | | 13 | 3 | | 14 | 6 | +----+----+ 7 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> TABLE t ORDER BY b; +----+----+ | a | b | +----+----+ | 10 | -4 | | 11 | -1 | | 1 | 2 | | 13 | 3 | | 9 | 5 | | 14 | 6 | | 6 | 7 | +----+----+ 7 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> TABLE t LIMIT 3; +---+---+ | a | b | +---+---+ | 1 | 2 | | 6 | 7 | | 9 | 5 | +---+---+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> TABLE t ORDER BY b LIMIT 3; +----+----+ | a | b | +----+----+ | 10 | -4 | | 11 | -1 | | 1 | 2 | +----+----+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> TABLE t ORDER BY b LIMIT 3 OFFSET 2; +----+----+ | a | b | +----+----+ | 1 | 2 | 

