Just be careful not to use * , count does not always ignore NULLS, if you specify a column, it ignores NULLS, if you use * then it counts it (this is on SQL

Just be careful not to use * , count does not always ignore NULLS, if you specify a column, it ignores NULLS, if you use * then it counts it (this is on SQL Server btw... might be different on other platforms) create table foo(bar int) insert foo values(1),(null),(2) select count(*), count(bar) from foo 3 2