Left Join + count

[zzz]

Can I left join another table and istead of outputting it's results, just count how many instances of a particulat item entered into that table. Something like that?...

SELECT * FROM table1
LEFT JOIN table2 ON ( table1.item1 = table2.item2 ) COUNT table2.item3
WHERE item3 = 'X'

[paulnaj]

Do you mean ...

SELECT COUNT(*) as counter
FROM table1
LEFT JOIN table2 ON ( table1.item1 = table2.item2 )
WHERE item3 = 'X'

... or even just ...

SELECT *
FROM table1
LEFT JOIN table2 ON ( table1.item1 = table2.item2 )
WHERE item3 = 'X'

... and use mysql_num_rows() to count the returns.

Paul 🙂