Question

I need to count rows in more than one table in SQL Server 2008. I do this:

select count(*) from (select * from tbl1 union all select * from tbl2)

But it gives me an error of incorrect syntax near ). Why?

PS. The actual number of tables can be more than 2.

Answer 1

In case you have different number of columns in your tables try this way

 SELECT count(*) 
 FROM (
      SELECT NULL as columnName 
      FROM tbl1 
          UNION ALL
      SELECT NULL 
      FROM tbl2
     ) T