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

如果你知道这些部分是什么，你可以这样做:

select top 10 * from table where section=1
union
select top 10 * from table where section=2
union
select top 10 * from table where section=3

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

您可以尝试这种方法。 这个查询为每个国家返回10个人口最多的城市。

   SELECT city, country, population
   FROM
   (SELECT city, country, population, 
   @country_rank := IF(@current_country = country, @country_rank + 1, 1) AS country_rank,
   @current_country := country 
   FROM cities
   ORDER BY country, population DESC
   ) ranked
   WHERE country_rank <= 10;

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。

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;