Query that fetch whether any record exist

What is the fastest method to check whether ANY record satesfy the WHERE clause? For example, the following query:

    SELECT COUNT (*) FROM tableX
    WHERE ...
May require full table scan in order to return number of records with the specified criteria. Same with any MIN function usage, while all I want is a boolean value specifying whether any record exist, i.e. one that will stop execution once the first record is found.

Any idea?

Thanks,
Maoz Received on Sun Jan 09 2000 - 10:31:47 CST