Post.count to_sql in Rails3?

Question

I have a model name Post. When I try to run Post.count I get a result without a problem. However, I suspect that Ruby is used to count the number of posts returned.

Instead, I'd like to use SQL to count the number of posts, as it is much faster.

The only way I have found to achieve this using Arel is Post.select("COUNT(id)"). Is there no way to run a count command without explicitly calling select on the model? Thanks!

Answer 1

Post.count should generate the query:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "posts"

Edit: You can see the queries generated by looking at your development.log file.

Answer 2

Is that what you want? :

Post.where(your_sql).count

Read here