Number of rows in DB

Question

To know the number of rows in a table, count(*) is used.
It is fast to get the result if you directly type the command into MYSQL, but not in servlet.
The codes I often used look like this way:
ResultSet resultSet =
stmt1.executeQuery("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM CONTENT");
resultSet.next();
rowcount = resultSet.getInt(1);
Please tell me if there is a better and faster way to get the same result as what the codes do above!
Please help if you could!

Answer 1

To know the number of rows in a table, count(*) is
used.
It is fast to get the result if you directly typethe
command into MYSQL, but not in servlet.It will do it just as fast as MYSQL did it. If you're
seeing a lag time it's more likely because of other
code, such as establishing the JDBC connection as
well. Are you using connection pools like you should?In the company i work for I once red an artical saying the using
count(1) // or any literal in this case
instead of count(*) is faster.
becouse when you call count with column names or * in it the dbms fetch the values of actual column and count that row only if any of those columns has a not null value but if you are calling count(1) it does not fetch any column values just keep counting rows.
But you do not notice any different unless you got large number of rows and columns in the table.