On Monday 11 October 2010 16:50:36 you wrote:
> On 10/11/2010 3:54 PM, Neil Whelchel wrote:
> > 1. A faster count(*), or something like my proposed estimate(*).
> > 2. A way to get the total rows matched when using LIMIT and OFFSET before
> > LIMIT and OFFSET are applied.
>
> The biggest single problem with "select count(*)" is that it is
> seriously overused. People use that idiom to establish existence, which
> usually leads to a performance disaster in the application using it,
> unless the table has no more than few hundred records. SQL language, of
> which PostgreSQL offers an excellent implementation, offers [NOT]
> EXISTS clause since its inception in the Jurassic era. The problem is
> with the sequential scan, not with counting. I'd even go as far as to
> suggest that 99% instances of the "select count(*)" idiom are probably
> bad use of the SQL language.
I agree, I have seen many very bad examples of using count(*). I will go so
far as to question the use of count(*) in my examples here. It there a better
way to come up with a page list than using count(*)? What is the best method
to make a page of results and a list of links to other pages of results? Am I
barking up the wrong tree here?
-Neil-
