total row count for selects with a limit

Hi there,

 

what seems to be the best way of getting the total row number on select queries with a limit on them?

 

What I am currently thinking of doing is building select queries dynamically and wrapping all selected fields into the count() function without the limit

 

somthing like:

 

select a,b,c from table limit 10

 

and for total count

 

select count(a,b,c) from table

 

and a function to build the select query with parameters such as

 

function build_select($table, $cols=array(), $limit, $orderby, $where) { ... }

 

I am going in the right direction? Instead of one query I need 2 is there a way of making it just one query?

 

thanks for any help

 

regards, Peter