我是这样做的:

SELECT a.* FROM articles AS a
  LEFT JOIN articles AS a2 
    ON a.section = a2.section AND a.article_date <= a2.article_date
GROUP BY a.article_id
HAVING COUNT(*) <= 10;

更新:这个GROUP BY的例子只适用于MySQL和SQLite，因为这些数据库在GROUP BY方面比标准SQL更允许。大多数SQL实现要求选择列表中不属于聚合表达式的所有列也在GROUP BY中。

UNION操作符对您有用吗?每个部分有一个SELECT，然后将它们联合在一起。不过，我猜它只适用于固定数量的部分。

SELECT r.*
FROM
(
    SELECT
        r.*,
        ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY r.[SectionID]
                          ORDER BY r.[DateEntered] DESC) rn
    FROM [Records] r
) r
WHERE r.rn <= 10
ORDER BY r.[DateEntered] DESC

如果我们使用SQL Server >= 2005，那么我们可以只用一个选择来解决任务:

declare @t table (
    Id      int ,
    Section int,
    Moment  date
);

insert into @t values
(   1   ,   1   , '2014-01-01'),
(   2   ,   1   , '2014-01-02'),
(   3   ,   1   , '2014-01-03'),
(   4   ,   1   , '2014-01-04'),
(   5   ,   1   , '2014-01-05'),

(   6   ,   2   , '2014-02-06'),
(   7   ,   2   , '2014-02-07'),
(   8   ,   2   , '2014-02-08'),
(   9   ,   2   , '2014-02-09'),
(   10  ,   2   , '2014-02-10'),

(   11  ,   3   , '2014-03-11'),
(   12  ,   3   , '2014-03-12'),
(   13  ,   3   , '2014-03-13'),
(   14  ,   3   , '2014-03-14'),
(   15  ,   3   , '2014-03-15');


-- TWO earliest records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment) <= 2 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;


-- THREE earliest records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment) <= 3 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;


-- three LATEST records in each Section

select top 1 with ties
    Id, Section, Moment 
from
    @t
order by 
    case 
        when row_number() over(partition by Section order by Moment desc) <= 3 
        then 0 
        else 1 
    end;

这适用于SQL Server 2005(编辑以反映您的澄清):

select *
from Things t
where t.ThingID in (
    select top 10 ThingID
    from Things tt
    where tt.Section = t.Section and tt.ThingDate = @Date
    order by tt.DateEntered desc
    )
    and t.ThingDate = @Date
order by Section, DateEntered desc

Q)从每个组中找到TOP X记录(Oracle)

SQL> select * from emp e 
  2  where e.empno in (select d.empno from emp d 
  3  where d.deptno=e.deptno and rownum<3)
  4  order by deptno
  5  ;

 EMPNO ENAME      JOB              MGR HIREDATE         SAL       COMM     DEPTNO

  7782 CLARK      MANAGER         7839 09-JUN-81       2450                    10
  7839 KING       PRESIDENT            17-NOV-81       5000                    10
  7369 SMITH      CLERK           7902 17-DEC-80        800                    20
  7566 JONES      MANAGER         7839 02-APR-81       2975                    20
  7499 ALLEN      SALESMAN        7698 20-FEB-81       1600        300         30
  7521 WARD       SALESMAN        7698 22-FEB-81       1250        500         30

选定6行。