Simple check for SELECT query empty result

Question

Can anyone point out how to check if a select query returns non empty result set?

For example I have next query:

SELECT * FROM service s WHERE s.service_id = ?; 

Should I do something like next:

ISNULL(SELECT * FROM service s WHERE s.service_id = ?) 

to test if result set is not empty?

Answer 1

IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM service s WHERE s.service_id = ?)  BEGIN    --DO STUFF HERE   END 

Answer 2

Use @@ROWCOUNT:

SELECT * FROM service s WHERE s.service_id = ?;  IF @@ROWCOUNT > 0     -- do stuff here..... 

According to SQL Server Books Online:

Returns the number of rows affected by the last statement. If the number of rows is more than 2 billion, use ROWCOUNT_BIG.