How do I use ROW_NUMBER()?

Question

I want to use the ROW_NUMBER() to get...

1. To get the max(ROW_NUMBER()) --> Or i guess this would also be the count of all rows

Answer 1

If you need to return the table's total row count, you can use an alternative way to the SELECT COUNT(*) statement.

Because SELECT COUNT(*) makes a full table scan to return the row count, it can take very long time for a large table. You can use the sysindexes system table instead in this case. There is a ROWS column that contains the total row count for each table in your database. You can use the following select statement:

SELECT rows FROM sysindexes WHERE id = OBJECT_ID('table_name') AND indid < 2

This will drastically reduce the time your query takes.