Question

I would like to name a column ‘count’, but I’m worried it could cause problems as I already have a lot of queries written that use count(*) as `count

Will that cause problems?

Answer 1

I’d not recommend it, as it’s a reserved word, but if you must, you can escape it with backticks:

SELECT `count` FROM `table` WHERE 1

As far as what you already have, you can still use both queries. The COUNT(*) AS 'count' will return a single row with a single column, ‘count’. The SELECT 'count' way will return it as a normal column.

Also, note that I used ‘ instead of ` in the last sentence, just because SO uses ` to denote code.

All in all, it’s a bad idea.