“SELECT TOP 1 1” VS “IF EXISTS(SELECT 1”

Question

I have some .NET code that checks for the existence of a SQL record at a moderately-high interval. I am looking to make this check as \"cheap\" as possible.

I\'m wo

Answer 1

Not sure about SQL Server but in other databases the standard method is:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM BigTable where SomeCol = 200;

Actual efficiency depends on your indexes etc.