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# MySQL COUNT Function

MySQL COUNT function is the simplest function and very useful in counting the number of records which are expected to be returned by a SELECT statement.

To understand COUNT function consider an employee_tbl table which is having following records:

    mysql> SELECT * FROM employee_tbl;
    +------+------+------------+--------------------+
    | id   | name | work_date  | daily_typing_pages |
    +------+------+------------+--------------------+
    |    1 | John | 2007-01-24 |                250 |
    |    2 | Ram  | 2007-05-27 |                220 |
    |    3 | Jack | 2007-05-06 |                170 |
    |    3 | Jack | 2007-04-06 |                100 |
    |    4 | Jill | 2007-04-06 |                220 |
    |    5 | Zara | 2007-06-06 |                300 |
    |    5 | Zara | 2007-02-06 |                350 |
    +------+------+------------+--------------------+
    7 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Now suppose based on the above table you want to count total number of rows in this table then you can do it as follows:

    mysql>SELECT COUNT(*) FROM employee_tbl ;
    +----------+
    | COUNT(*) |
    +----------+
    |        7 |
    +----------+
    1 row in set (0.01 sec)

Similarly you want to count the number of records for Zara then it can be done as follows:

    mysql>SELECT COUNT(*) FROM employee_tbl
        -> WHERE name="Zara";
    +----------+
    | COUNT(*) |
    +----------+
    |        2 |
    +----------+
    1 row in set (0.04 sec)

NOTE: All the SQL queries are case insensitive so it does not make any difference if you give ZARA or Zara in where condition.

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