#0417 – SQL Server – Select row count of local temp tables

I was recently contacted by a fellow team member who was interested in finding out the number of records in a temporary table which was being used as part of a long-running script.

As I had mentioned in one of my previous posts, local temporary tables are only accessible to the connection that created them. Hence, if a script is already running, the only connection that can execute queries against the local temporary table is the connection itself making this requirement a tricky one to work with.

The Solution

The solution for this is to realize that all tables – permanent or local consume storage either in a system/user database or in the tempdb. Hence, we can access this meta-data to fulfill our requirement. Let’s check it out with a demo.

Demo

In any window, we can access the dynamic management view (DMV): [sys].[dm_db_partition_stats]. As we know, this DMV returns page and row-count information for every partition in the current database.

So, let’s open a new query window in the SQL Server Management Studio and run the following query:

--Create a new test database
IF (DB_ID('SQLTwins') IS NULL)
BEGIN
    CREATE DATABASE [SQLTwins];
END
GO

USE [SQLTwins];
GO

--Window 01
BEGIN
    IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#SQLTwinsDemo','U') IS NOT NULL
    BEGIN
        DROP TABLE [dbo].[#SQLTwinsDemo];
    END

    CREATE TABLE [dbo].[#SQLTwinsDemo] ([Number] INT         NOT NULL,
                                        [Value]  VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL
                                       );

    INSERT INTO [dbo].[#SQLTwinsDemo] ([Number],
                                       [Value]
                                      )
    VALUES (9, 'Nine' ),
           (8, 'Eight'),
           (7, 'Seven'),
           (6, 'Six'  ),
           (5, 'Five' ),
           (4, 'Four' ),
           (3, 'Three'),
           (2, 'Two'  ),
           (1, 'One'  );
END

Now, in another window, try to run a simple row count query. As expected, it would return an error.

USE [SQLTwins];
GO
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM [dbo].[#SQLTwinsDemo];
GO

Msg 208, Level 16, State 0, Line 3
Invalid object name '#SQLTwinsDemo'.

Now, let’s use the DMV: [sys].[dm_db_partition_stats] in another window to get the row count information.

USE [SQLTwins];
GO
--Now, do this in Window #2
BEGIN
    SELECT [st].[name] AS [TableName],
           [partitionStatistics].[row_count] AS [RowCount]
    FROM [tempdb].[sys].[dm_db_partition_stats] AS [partitionStatistics]
    INNER JOIN [tempdb].[sys].[tables] AS [st] ON [st].[object_id] = [partitionStatistics].[object_id]
    WHERE [st].[name] LIKE '%SQLTwinsDemo%'
      AND ([partitionStatistics].[index_id] = 0  --Table is a heap
           OR
           [partitionStatistics].[index_id] = 1  --Table has a clustered index
          )
END