What is the difference between count(0), count(1).. and count(*) in mySQL/SQL?

Question

I was recently asked this question in an interview. I tried this in mySQL, and got the same results(final results). All gave the number of rows in that particular table. Can

Answer 1

Now - they should all perform identically.

In days gone by, though, COUNT(1) (or whatever constant you chose) was sometimes recommended over COUNT(*) because poor query optimisation code would make the database retrieve all of the field data prior to running the count. COUNT(1) was therefore faster, but it shouldn't matter now.