Just wanted to write, why not select count(*) ? But I guess that's what you meant by row numbers. Select 1 communicates that no columns need to be selected, so

Just wanted to write, why not select count(*) ? But I guess that's what you meant by row numbers. Select 1 communicates that no columns need to be selected, so it forces inexperienced readers such as myself to understand why that is the case. So imho, it carries more information than selecting some arbitrary columns, or counting the number of rows (for which I only care it's > 0)