SQL count rows in a table

Question

I need to submit a SQL query to a database to determine the number of rows in a table. I could use a SELECT to retrieve all the rows in the table and then count them, but I don't enjoy doing things this way. Is there any method to query the SQL server for the amount of rows in a table?

Answer 1

A fast way of doing this would be to use the following query but it is often not accurate

select sum([rows])
from sys.partitions
where id=id('tablename')
 and index_id in (0,1)