[SOLVED] getting number of rows in a complex query

[phpknight]

Hi,

 

I know that I can use COUNT(*) to get the number of rows in a table, etc.  However, is there a way I can run a relatively complex query and just get the number of rows returned to me instead of all the data?  For instance, I want to just count how many images are in a gallery of a certain user--to get this I have to do a complex join with multiple tables, but if they have thousands, I just want the number.  I really do not need thousands of rows.  Does anybody know how to do this?  I seem to be having trouble accomplishing this.

[Barand]

The structure of the multiple tables would help us to help you

[drranch]

example structure

 

table name: image

Column name: userid

Column name: image

 

$query = "SELECT userid, COUNT(*) FROM image GROUP BY userid

 

 

[phpknight]

Thanks for the input. I was able to fix this by rewriting the query.  It is much more efficient now.

 

But, basically the old question is something like this: In a query when you have SELECT DISTINCT, how do you get the count of the number of distinct rows here.  If I put count to the left, that is bad syntax.  However, if I take distinct out, then the results are not what I want.

 

 

[Barand]

COUNT(DISTINCT imageID) as numImages

 

may help

[phpknight]

Aha, thanks for the tip!