COUNT(*) vs. COUNT(1) vs. COUNT(pk): which is better?

Question

I often find these three variants:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Foo;
SELECT COUNT(1) FROM Foo;
SELECT COUNT(PrimaryKey) FROM Foo;

As far as I can see, they all do the same thing, and I find myself using the three in my codebase. However, I don't like to do the same thing different ways. To which one should I stick? Is any one of them better than the two others?

Answer 1

Bottom Line

Use either COUNT(field) or COUNT(*), and stick with it consistently, and if your database allows COUNT(tableHere) or COUNT(tableHere.*), use that.

In short, don't use COUNT(1) for anything. It's a one-trick pony, which rarely does what you want, and in those rare cases is equivalent to count(*)

Use count(*) for counting

Use * for all your queries that need to count everything, even for joins, use *

SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(subordinate.*)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

But don't use COUNT(*) for LEFT joins, as that will return 1 even if the subordinate table doesn't match anything from parent table

SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(*)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

Don't be fooled by those advising that when using * in COUNT, it fetches entire row from your table, saying that * is slow. The * on SELECT COUNT(*) and SELECT * has no bearing to each other, they are entirely different thing, they just share a common token, i.e. *.

An alternate syntax

In fact, if it is not permitted to name a field as same as its table name, RDBMS language designer could give COUNT(tableNameHere) the same semantics as COUNT(*). Example:

For counting rows we could have this:

SELECT COUNT(emp) FROM emp

And they could make it simpler:

SELECT COUNT() FROM emp

And for LEFT JOINs, we could have this:

SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(subordinate)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

But they cannot do that (COUNT(tableNameHere)) since SQL standard permits naming a field with the same name as its table name:

CREATE TABLE fruit -- ORM-friendly name
(
fruit_id int NOT NULL,
fruit varchar(50), /* same name as table name, 
                and let's say, someone forgot to put NOT NULL */
shape varchar(50) NOT NULL,
color varchar(50) NOT NULL
)

Counting with null

And also, it is not a good practice to make a field nullable if its name matches the table name. Say you have values 'Banana', 'Apple', NULL, 'Pears' on fruit field. This will not count all rows, it will only yield 3, not 4

SELECT count(fruit) FROM fruit

Though some RDBMS do that sort of principle (for counting the table's rows, it accepts table name as COUNT's parameter), this will work in Postgresql (if there is no subordinate field in any of the two tables below, i.e. as long as there is no name conflict between field name and table name):

SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(subordinate)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

But that could cause confusion later if we will add a subordinate field in the table, as it will count the field(which could be nullable), not the table rows.

So to be on the safe side, use:

SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(subordinate.*)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

count(1): The one-trick pony

In particular to COUNT(1), it is a one-trick pony, it works well only on one table query:

SELECT COUNT(1) FROM tbl

But when you use joins, that trick won't work on multi-table queries without its semantics being confused, and in particular you cannot write:

-- count the subordinates that belongs to boss
SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(subordinate.1)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

So what's the meaning of COUNT(1) here?

SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(1)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

Is it this...?

-- counting all the subordinates only
SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(subordinate.boss_id)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

Or this...?

-- or is that COUNT(1) will also count 1 for boss regardless if boss has a subordinate
SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(*)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

By careful thought, you can infer that COUNT(1) is the same as COUNT(*), regardless of type of join. But for LEFT JOINs result, we cannot mold COUNT(1) to work as: COUNT(subordinate.boss_id), COUNT(subordinate.*)

So just use either of the following:

-- count the subordinates that belongs to boss
SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(subordinate.boss_id)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

Works on Postgresql, it's clear that you want to count the cardinality of the set

-- count the subordinates that belongs to boss
SELECT boss.boss_id, COUNT(subordinate.*)
FROM boss
LEFT JOIN subordinate on subordinate.boss_id = boss.boss_id
GROUP BY boss.id

Another way to count the cardinality of the set, very English-like (just don't make a column with a name same as its table name) : http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!1/98515/7

select boss.boss_name, count(subordinate)
from boss
left join subordinate on subordinate.boss_code = boss.boss_code
group by boss.boss_name

You cannot do this: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!1/98515/8

select boss.boss_name, count(subordinate.1)
from boss
left join subordinate on subordinate.boss_code = boss.boss_code
group by boss.boss_name

You can do this, but this produces wrong result: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!1/98515/9

select boss.boss_name, count(1)
from boss
left join subordinate on subordinate.boss_code = boss.boss_code
group by boss.boss_name