<p>I mean what the most efficient way to get information about the quantity of your page's items and make sql query with LIMIT that you need. or I should get all items and then crop array with php functions?</p>

<p>now I do 2 queries: first to count all items and second to get items that I need with LIMIT.    </p>

<p>OK, I'll be more concrete. For example I need to show a question on my page and 20 answers to this question. At the bottom there shold be page control: links to the next, prev page and so on. I want to show proper number of links (number of answers/20) and when I go to any link I want to recieve proper answers (for example 41 to 60 on the 3d page). So what's the best way to get number of items (answers) to show proper number of links and to get proper answers for each link?</p>

I'm assuming you want a count of the number of rows you'll be reading so as to do some pagination or similar? I don't understand your need for the LIMIT in the context of your question. However, if you just want a count of how many rows have been found, use one of the following.
You select the count of all rows such as:
```
```
select count(*) as counted, name, address
from contact
```
```
Or found rows:
```
```
SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS, name, address
from contact
```
```
This may be mysql specific I'm not sure.
Update:
For pagination you would do something like the following - (Psuedocode)
$rows = array($result)
$num_rows = sql_calc_found_rows
$per_page = 20
$pages = ceil($num_rows / $per_page)
page
$rows_this_page = array()
$rows_this_page = get_values($rows, (min index)$page_number * $per_page - $per_page, (max index)$page_number * $per_page - 1)