Microsoft Access 2010 Bible

Chapter 18: Advanced Access Query Techniques

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FIGURE 18.6

The QBE pane of a query using the Count(*) function

The datasheet now has a single cell that shows the number of records in tblContacts

(see Figure 18.7). This query is included in the Chapter18.accdb database as

qryCountingCustomers.

FIGURE 18.7

The datasheet of a Count(*) function for tblCustomers

Because the Count() function counts the number of records returned by a query, it is the only

field that can appear in the query’s results. Although initially this may seem rather odd, there is no

way a single query can display both a count of all records, and data from the records themselves.

Because of this limitation, the Count() function is almost always used to return information

about the data in a database, rather than the data itself. After all, it is easy enough to create a sec-

ond query that returns the data counted by Count(), if needed.