Entrycount

Entrycount is a term used in computing to describe the number of entries in a collection or dataset. It is not tied to a specific language, but it is commonly used as a variable or property name to store or report how many elements are currently present. The concept applies to arrays, lists, sets, maps, database query results, files in a directory, or any enumerable collection.

In code, entrycount is typically obtained by counting elements in a container, by a built-in size or length property, or by a counting function. For example, a list may expose a size or length that equals its entrycount, while a map might report its number of key-value pairs as the entrycount. In databases, the term is related to the result of a COUNT operation, which yields the number of rows matching a query.

Common uses include controlling loops, allocating space, reporting progress, or validating assumptions about data volume. Because entrycount can change as data is added or removed, it is important to refresh or recompute it when the underlying collection mutates, and to consider concurrency in multi-threaded contexts.

Limitations and pitfalls include off-by-one errors, especially when iterating up to but not including the entrycount, and misinterpreting entrycount as a stable snapshot in dynamic datasets.

See also: count, size, length, cardinality, length of collection.