The problem is that LIMIT is only to be used with SELECT statements, as it limits the number of rows returned by the query.
The LIMIT clause can be used to constrain the number of rows returned by
the SELECT statement. LIMIT takes one or two numeric arguments, which
must both be nonnegative integer constants, with these exceptions:
Within prepared statements, LIMIT parameters can be specified using ? placeholder markers.
Within stored programs, LIMIT parameters can be specified using integer-valued routine parameters or local variables as of MySQL 5.5.6.
With two arguments, the first argument specifies the offset of the
first row to return, and the second specifies the maximum number of
rows to return. The offset of the initial row is 0 (not 1):
SELECT * FROM tbl LIMIT 5,10; # Retrieve rows 6-15
To retrieve all rows from a certain offset up to the end of the result
set, you can use some large number for the second parameter. This
statement retrieves all rows from the 96th row to the last:
SELECT * FROM tbl LIMIT 95,18446744073709551615;
With one argument, the value specifies the number of rows to return
from the beginning of the result set:
SELECT * FROM tbl LIMIT 5; # Retrieve first 5 rows
In other words, LIMIT row_count is equivalent to LIMIT 0, row_count.
For prepared statements, you can use placeholders. The following
statements will return one row from the tbl table:
SET @a=1; PREPARE STMT FROM 'SELECT * FROM tbl LIMIT ?'; EXECUTE STMT
USING @a;
The following statements will return the second to sixth row from the
tbl table:
SET @skip=1; SET @numrows=5; PREPARE STMT FROM 'SELECT * FROM tbl
LIMIT ?, ?'; EXECUTE STMT USING @skip, @numrows;
For compatibility with PostgreSQL, MySQL also supports the LIMIT
row_count OFFSET offset syntax.
If LIMIT occurs within a subquery and also is applied in the outer
query, the outermost LIMIT takes precedence. For example, the
following statement produces two rows, not one:
(SELECT ... LIMIT 1) LIMIT 2;