Faster alternative in Oracle to SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sometable

Question

I\'ve notice that in Oracle, the query

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sometable;

is very slow for large tables. It seems like the database it actual

Answer 1

This worked well for me

select owner, table_name, nvl(num_rows,-1) 
from all_tables 
--where table_name in ('cats', 'dogs')
order by nvl(num_rows,-1) desc

from https://livesql.oracle.com/apex/livesql/file/content_EPJLBHYMPOPAGL9PQAV7XH14Q.html