A method and mechanism is provided for executing a query that includes a subquery, where the subquery includes an ORDER BY clause. The results generated by executing the subquery are ordered as specified by the ORDER BY clause. When the results of the subquery are referenced by the outer query, the results generated for the subquery satisfy the restriction. For example, the restriction may specify that the row number pseudo-column be less than a threshold. In response, a TOP N operation is performed to return the rows that are TOP N in order. The order is based on the ORDER BY clause.