Why does my raw query to count rows always returns -1?

Question

I\'m trying to check if table exists, but not working correctly.

For some reason, count always returns -1. I already have a table in the database. It should return

Answer 1

ExecuteSqlCommand doesn't return data, it always returns an Int32, which is the number of rows processed by the SQL script when it's a DDL/DML command.

You want SqlQuery<TElement>(String, Object[]) instead.

var count = db.Database.SqlQuery<int>(sql4).Single();

Answer 2

ExecuteStoreQuery Directly Execute Commands Against the Data Source.

int result = entity.ExecuteStoreQuery<int>(@"
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.tables WHERE name = 'TableName') 
    SELECT 1
ELSE
    SELECT 0
").SingleOrDefault();

See answer here.