Whats the best way to get total # of records in a mysql table with php?

Question

Whats the most efficient way of selecting total number of records from a large table? Currently, Im simply doing

$result = mysql_query(\"SELECT id FROM table         


        

Answer 1

mysqli_query() is deprecated. Better use this:

$result = $dbh->query("SELECT id FROM {table_name}");
$total = $result->num_rows;

Using PDO:

$result = $dbh->query("SELECT id FROM {table_name}");
$total = $result->rowCount();

(where '$dbh' = handle of the db connected to)