[RESOLVED] Counting the number of Rows... efficiently

[Kasracer]

Currently I am using an MySQL query to gather all the IDs pertaining to a specific category and then I use mysql_num_row() to count the number of rows to get the total.

Is there a more efficient way to do this? I know there is a COUNT() for MySQL but I didn't know how to return that and actually use it in PHP.

Thanks

[penagate]

I believe it is

$count = mysql_result(mysql_query('SELECT COUNT(*) FROM `table_name`'), 0); 

As for efficiency, not sure. Loop each one a few hundred times and benchmark them using microtime() if you're concerned

Edit: My educated guess is that if you require the table data anyway then mysql_num_rows() will be more efficient than two queries. But if all you need is a row count then this will be more efficient.

[Kasracer]

Thanks!