BetterPHP

Posted: **Thu Oct 18, 2012 5:53 pm**

For example if I wanted to count elements in a specific table
I can use

SELECT COUNT(user_id) FROM `users`

and

SELECT COUNT(user_id) FROM `users`

the give the same number but what are the main differences between them?

Posted: **Thu Oct 18, 2012 5:56 pm**

The difference is generally performance on large tables, this explains it rather well http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/200 ... -countcol/

Posted: **Thu Oct 18, 2012 6:00 pm**

My table is not that big it has over 100 users, so I can use either. but for the sake of speed count(*) is faster

Thanks

Major difference between COUNT(column_name) and COUNT(*)