再来看net.sf.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect:

[code:1]public boolean supportsLimit() {
return true;
}

public String getLimitString(String sql) {
StringBuffer pagingSelect = new StringBuffer(100);
pagingSelect.append("select * from ( select row_.*, rownum rownum_ from ( ");
pagingSelect.append(sql);
pagingSelect.append(" ) row_ where rownum <= ?) where rownum_ > ?");
return pagingSelect.toString();
}[/code:1]

Oracle采用嵌套3层的查询语句结合rownum来实现分页，这在Oracle上是最快的方式，如果只是一层或者两层的查询语句的rownum不能支持order by。