Question

How do I return the count of rows returned by this query instead of query results:

SELECT collections.name, collections.description, collections.collection_id, collections.name, collections.description, collections.date, users.name
FROM users, collections
WHERE collections.user_id = users.user_id
AND (
collections.description LIKE  "%%searchTerm%%"
OR collections.name LIKE  "%%searchTerm%%"
OR users.name LIKE  "%%searchTerm%%"
)
AND (
reported = false
OR (
reviewed = true
AND approved = true
)
)

Answer 1

You can do use count(1) or count(collections.collection_id)

SELECT 
    count(collections.collection_id)
FROM 
    users,
    collections
WHERE 
    collections.user_id = users.user_id
    AND (
            collections.description LIKE  "%%searchTerm%%"
            OR collections.name LIKE  "%%searchTerm%%"
            OR users.name LIKE  "%%searchTerm%%"
        )
    AND (
        reported = false
        OR (
            reviewed = true
            AND approved = true
        )
    )