How does sphinxql get the number of results and a detailed description of show meta

mysql:
select count(*) from main_index;

But this one is grammatically incorrect here.

Method 1:
Check the documents:
Aggregate functions (AVG(), MIN(), MAX(), SUM()) in column list clause are supported. Arguments to aggregate functions can be either plain attributes or arbitrary expressions. COUNT(*) is implicitly supported as using GROUP BY will add @count column to result set. Explicit support might be added in the future. COUNT(DISTINCT attr) is supported. Currently there can be at most one COUNT(DISTINCT) per query and an argument needs to be an attribute. Both current restrictions on COUNT(DISTINCT) might be lifted in the future.

In other words, count(*) should be used only when group by. For example:

select 1 as dummy,count(*) c from main_index group by dummy;
+------+--------+-------+--------+
| id | weight | dummy | @count |
+------+--------+-------+--------+
| 1001 | 1      | 1 | 15659 |
+------+--------+-------+--------+

The second way

select * from main_index limit 0;
show meta;
+---------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------+-------+
| total         |  67 | 
| total_found   |  67 |
| time | 0.001  |
| keyword[0]     |  ha |
| docs[0] | 67  |
| hits[0] | 115 |
+---------------+-------+

So we're going to use show meta to get this total_found, which is the total number of records.

Let's talk about show meta:
SHOW META shows additional meta-information about the latest query such as query time and keyword statistics:

That is to say, it shows some information attached to the last query, such as query time, keyword statistics, total records, and so on.

mysql> SELECT * FROM test1 WHERE MATCH('test|one|two');
+------+--------+----------+------------+
| id   | weight | group_id | date_added |
+------+--------+----------+------------+
|    1 |   3563 |      456 | 1231721236 |
|    2 |   2563 |      123 | 1231721236 |
|    4 |   1480 |        2 | 1231721236 |
+------+--------+----------+------------+
3 rows in set (0.01 sec)

mysql> SHOW META;
+---------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------+-------+
| total         | 3     |
| total_found   | 3     |
| time          | 0.005 |
| keyword[0]    | test  |
| docs[0]       | 3     |
| hits[0]       | 5     |
| keyword[1]    | one   |
| docs[1]       | 1     |
| hits[1]       | 2     |
| keyword[2]    | two   |
| docs[2]       | 1     |
| hits[2]       | 2     |
+---------------+-------+
12 rows in set (0.00 sec)

How is it called in PHP?

<?php
// Gets the total number of records 
private function getTotalFound($conn) {
    $sql = "show meta";
    $total_result = @mysql_query ( $sql,$conn );
    $totals = array ();
    while ( ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc ( $total_result )) !== false ) {
        $totals [$row ['Variable_name']] = $row ['Value'];
    }
    return $totals;
}
?> 

Note: if the code USES multiple database connections, the corresponding conn must be passed in, otherwise the result will not be available.