What are the Differences Between COUNT and COUNT_BIG Functions in SQL Server?

Hello everyone,

In this article, I will try to give information about the differences between the COUNT and COUNT_BIG functions in SQL Server.

COUNT and COUNT_BIG are both aggregate functions in SQL Server that are used to count the number of rows in a table or a result set. The main difference between the two is the data type that they return.

COUNT returns an integer value that represents the number of rows in a table or a result set. If the result set contains no rows, COUNT returns 0.

On the other hand, COUNT_BIG returns a bigint value that represents the number of rows in a table or a result set. If the result set contains no rows, COUNT_BIG returns 0.

The difference between these two functions is important when you are working with very large result sets or tables that contain a large number of rows. If the result set or table contains more than 2^31-1 rows, which is the maximum value that an integer can hold, then COUNT will return an error, whereas COUNT_BIG can handle these large numbers and return the correct count.

In summary, the main difference between COUNT and COUNT_BIG is the data type that they return. COUNT returns an integer value and can handle result sets with less than 2^31-1 rows, whereas COUNT_BIG returns a bigint value and can handle result sets with more than 2^31-1 rows.

Good luck to everyone in business and life.