Row count with PDO

Question

There are many conflicting statements around. What is the best way to get the row count using PDO in PHP? Before using PDO, I just simply used mysql_num_rows.

Answer 1

This is an old post, but getting frustrated looking for alternatives. It is super unfortunate that PDO lacks this feature, especially as PHP and MySQL tend to go hand in hand.

There is an unfortunate flaw in using fetchColumn() as you can no longer use that result set (effectively) as the fetchColumn() moves the needle to the next row. So for example, if you have a result similar to

1. Fruit->Banana
2. Fruit->Apple
3. Fruit->Orange

If you use fetchColumn() you can find out that there are 3 fruits returned, but if you now loop through the result, you only have two columns, The price of fetchColumn() is the loss of the first column of results just to find out how many rows were returned. That leads to sloppy coding, and totally error ridden results if implemented.

So now, using fetchColumn() you have to implement and entirely new call and MySQL query just to get a fresh working result set. (which hopefully hasn't changed since your last query), I know, unlikely, but it can happen. Also, the overhead of dual queries on all row count validation. Which for this example is small, but parsing 2 million rows on a joined query, not a pleasant price to pay.

I love PHP and support everyone involved in its development as well as the community at large using PHP on a daily basis, but really hope this is addressed in future releases. This is 'really' my only complaint with PHP PDO, which otherwise is a great class.