A question about COUNT()

I have a mysql table with multiple fields and the index is an auto_incremented int called id.

I was wondering if it's faster to do

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mytable
or
SELECT COUNT(id) FROM mytable

The results are, of course, the same. Any insight into this would be appreciated. Thanks.

I seem to remember reading that COUNT() is faster than COUNT(column), because COUNT(column) worries about NULLs in the column whereas doesn't.

If the column is indexed (it's an auto increment so it should be!) and rows are never deleted, SELECT MAX(id) FROM mytable might be faster still!

MySQL's strength is it's speed, so it probably wont make much difference until you have millions of rows anyway.

Cheers,
Alan

Thanks for the info! Mmm, millions of rows. I must get to work.