TopValues Property

See Also         Example         Applies To

You can use the TopValues property to return a specified number of records or a percentage of records that meet the criteria you specify. For example, you might want to return the top 10 values or the top 25 percent of all values in a field.

Note   The TopValues property applies only to append, make-table, and select queries.

Setting

The TopValues property setting is an Integer value representing the exact number of values to return or a number followed by a percent sign (%) representing the percentage of records to return. For example, to return the top 10 values, set the TopValues property to 10; to return the top 10 percent of values, set the TopValues property to 10%.

You can't set this property in code directly. It's set in SQL view of the Query window by using a TOP n or TOP n PERCENT clause in the SQL statement.

You can also set the TopValues property by using the query's property sheet or the Top Values box on the Query Design toolbar.

Note   The TopValues property in the query's property sheet and on the Query Design toolbar is a combo box that contains a list of values and percentage values. You can select one of these values or you can type any valid setting in the text box portion of this control.

Remarks

Typically, you use the TopValues property setting together with sorted fields. The field you want to display top values for should be the leftmost field that has the Sort box selected in the query design grid. An ascending sort returns the bottommost records, and a descending sort returns the topmost records. If you specify that a specific number of records be returned, all records with values that match the value in the last record are also returned.

For example, suppose a set of employees has the following sales totals.

If you set the TopValues property to 3 with a descending sort on the Sales field, Microsoft Access returns the following four records.

Note   To return the topmost or bottommost values without displaying duplicate values, set the UniqueValues property in the query's property sheet to Yes.