[RESOLVED] Clafification of the LIMIT keyword

[OctoberWind]

I have this four-table query:

$query = "select v.category_id, c.category_name, sum(v.vote_rank), t.user_submitted, t.toolbox_id, u.name from pten_votes v 
    inner join pten_toolboxes t on v.toolbox_id = t.toolbox_id 
    inner join pten_categories c on v.category_id = c.category_id
    inner join pten_users u on t.user_submitted = u.user_id
    where v.category_id = {$category}
    group by v.toolbox_id
    order by sum(v.vote_rank) desc 
    LIMIT 6";

$result = mysql_query($query,$link);

while ($votes = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        echo "<tr><td>{$votes['sum(v.vote_rank)']}</td><td>{$votes['name']}</td></tr>\r\n";
    } 

does the LIMIT 6 only look at the first six rows in the table (of 36 rows)? or only display the first six rows of the compiled dataset based on 'where category_id = X' (of approx 10 rows)?

[NogDog]

The latter: the first 6 rows of the total result set that matches the rest of the query criteria, including any ORDER BY results (which would be applied before the LIMIT is applied).

[OctoberWind]

excellent!