Finding number of columns returned by a query

Question

How can I get the number of columns returned by an SQL query using SQL Server?

For example, if I have a query like following:

SELECT  *
FROM    A1, A2

It should return the total number of columns in table A1 + total number of columns in table A2. But the query might be more complicated.

Answer 1

Here is one method:

select top 0
into _MYLOCALTEMPTABLE
from (your query here) t

select count(*)
from Information_Schema.Columns c
where table_name = '_MYLOCALTEMPTABLE'

You can do something similar by creating a view.