Are offsets dependant on recordsets or are they set in stone?

ie, if I have a table with 5 recordsets, I can use Offset=1, Offset=2 etc to view each. However, if say the 3rd is taken out (deleted), does offset=3 return an error, or does the next valid recordset become the valid intepretation?

Aegis Kleais
New Media Web Developer
(DWMX : IIS5.1 : SQL2K : WXP : ASP[VB/JS])