Pagination - 1 or 2 queries?

[csn]

Since you usually need to know the total number of rows a query would return, do you think it's better to:

a) Do one query with a LIMIT and OFFSET to get the results, and another COUNT query to get the total number of rows?

b) Do a single query without a LIMIT and OFFSET, then do a seek or similiar to get at the rows you want?

Most tutorials, code, etc. I've seen do "a". The eclipse library does "b".

[mattr]

Out of those two the first is far, far better. The second one is junk!!!

You could do something like:

SELECT COUNT( ), null, null, null, ... FROM yourTable
UNION
SELECT FROM yourTable