PDO rowCount return -1 - php

Question

I use the pdo connection to access a sybase database.
when using rowCount the result is -1
$stmt = $dbh->prepare("select .... FROM users u WHERE u.ds_username like '%user%' order by ds_username ASC");
$stmt->execute();
$count = $stmt->rowCount();

Answer 1

As per the rowCount documentation,
PDOStatement::rowCount() returns the number of rows affected by the last DELETE, INSERT, or UPDATE statement executed by the corresponding PDOStatement object.
If the last SQL statement executed by the associated PDOStatement was a SELECT statement, some databases may return the number of rows returned by that statement. However, this behaviour is not guaranteed for all databases and should not be relied on for portable applications.
and
For most databases, PDOStatement::rowCount() does not return the number of rows affected by a SELECT statement. Instead, use PDO::query() to issue a SELECT COUNT(*) statement with the same predicates as your intended SELECT statement, then use PDOStatement::fetchColumn() to retrieve the number of rows that will be returned.
Example
<?php
$sql = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM fruit WHERE calories > 100";
if ($res = $conn->query($sql)) {
/* Check the number of rows that match the SELECT statement */
if ($res->fetchColumn() > 0) {
/* Issue the real SELECT statement and work with the results */
$sql = "SELECT name FROM fruit WHERE calories > 100";
foreach ($conn->query($sql) as $row) {
print "Name: " . $row['NAME'] . "\n";
}
}
/* No rows matched -- do something else */
else {
print "No rows matched the query.";
}
}
$res = null;
$conn = null;
?>