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Databases

Posted by Kristin Fitzpatrick
Kristin Fitzpatrick
585 Points

Why is "Limit" not working in query?

I'm working on one of the early Reporting with SQL problems, and I can't figure out why "limit" isn't working: The challenge task is to pull 5 fantasy books, oldest first.

The error message I get on this is "Bummer! Five books were expected." SELECT * FROM books WHERE genre = "fantasy" ORDER BY first_published LIMIT 5;

Shorter queries ending in "Limit 5" work, so I don't know what combination of things is causing the problem in this query. Thanks!

Aside to Treehouse: I understand you may not want to provide an answer key (since there are different ways of querying), but it's frustrating to have all progress blocked due to one wrong answer. Maybe users could be presented with a different question testing them on the same concepts or let them move ahead with 2 out of 3, etc.

2 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

The issue is not the LIMIT but the filter. The challenge said "to obtain the first 5 books in the Fantasy genre...", but your WHERE clause is comparing "fantasy" (lower-case "f") instead of "Fantasy" (capital "F"). Some databases do case-insensitive comparisons by default, but this one doesn't.

Also, you don't need to be "stuck" at a challenge, you can always skip ahead to the next step using the circles at the top of the video window, or by going back to the course index and picking from there.

Kristin Fitzpatrick
Kristin Fitzpatrick
585 Points
Kristin Fitzpatrick
Kristin Fitzpatrick
585 Points

Ah, OK. Thanks - appreciate the help!