If you want the query to return only the first 5 rows, you can use the pseudo column called ROWNUM in the WHERE clause. ROWNUM contains the row number of each returning row from the query. The following statement returns the first 5 rows from the employees table:

SQL> SELECT employee_id, first_name, last_name

FROM employees WHERE ROWNUM <= 5;

EMPLOYEE_ID FIRST_NAME   LAST_NAME

----------- -------------------- -------------

  100 Steven   King

  101 Neena   Kochhar

  102 Lex   De Haan

  103 Alexander  Hunold

  104 Bruce   Ernst