Getting Row Count or Entity Count in Jscript or .NET in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 using FetchXML

This illustration shows you how get a rowcount or entity count for an entity type using FetchXML queries in code in jscript and also C# in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 though RetrieveMultipleRequest.   This example will be given in SOAP (JScript) and in C# (.NET).

This example counts the number of active account entities in my CRM org.  I know from looking in the system that there are 14.

Ok, here is what the code look like!

First in C#:

RetrieveMultipleRequest req = new RetrieveMultipleRequest();
FetchExpression fetch = new FetchExpression("<fetch distinct='false' mapping='logical' aggregate='true'>" +
   "<entity name='account'>" +
   "<attribute name='accountid' aggregate='count' alias='testcount'/>" +
   "</entity>" +
   "</fetch>");
req.Query = fetch;
RetrieveMultipleResponse resp = (RetrieveMultipleResponse)service.Execute(req);

If you need help instantiating a service object in .NET within a plugin check out this post:
http://mileyja.blogspot.com/2011/04/instantiating-service-object-within.html

Now here is the Jscript nicely formatted by the CRM 2011 SOAP formatter. Available at: http://crm2011soap.codeplex.com/

Now in Jscript:

if (typeof (SDK) == "undefined")
   { SDK = { __namespace: true }; }
       //This will establish a more unique namespace for functions in this library. This will reduce the 
       // potential for functions to be overwritten due to a duplicate name when the library is loaded.
       SDK.SAMPLES = {
           _getServerUrl: function () {
               ///<summary>
               /// Returns the URL for the SOAP endpoint using the context information available in the form
               /// or HTML Web resource.
               ///</summary>
               var OrgServicePath = "/XRMServices/2011/Organization.svc/web";
               var serverUrl = "";
               if (typeof GetGlobalContext == "function") {
                   var context = GetGlobalContext();
                   serverUrl = context.getServerUrl();
               }
               else {
                   if (typeof Xrm.Page.context == "object") {
                         serverUrl = Xrm.Page.context.getServerUrl();
                   }
                   else
                   { throw new Error("Unable to access the server URL"); }
                   }
                  if (serverUrl.match(/\/$/)) {
                       serverUrl = serverUrl.substring(0, serverUrl.length - 1);
                   } 
                   return serverUrl + OrgServicePath;
               }, 
           CountAccountsRequest: function () {
               var requestMain = ""
               requestMain += "<pre style=\"font-family: Andale Mono, Lucida Console, Monaco, fixed, monospace; color: #000000; background-color: #eee;font-size: 12px;border: 1px dashed #999999;line-height: 14px;padding: 5px; overflow: auto; width: 100%\"><code>RetrieveMultipleRequest req = new RetrieveMultipleRequest();";
               requestMain += "FetchExpression fetch = new FetchExpression(&quot;&lt;fetch distinct='false' mapping='logical' aggregate='true'&gt;&quot; +";
               requestMain += "   &quot;&lt;entity name='account'&gt;&quot; +";
               requestMain += "   &quot;&lt;attribute name='accountid' aggregate='count' alias='testcount'/&gt;&quot; +";
               requestMain += "   &quot;&lt;/entity&gt;&quot; +";
               requestMain += "   &quot;&lt;/fetch&gt;&quot;);";
               requestMain += "req.Query = fetch;";
               requestMain += "RetrieveMultipleResponse resp = (RetrieveMultipleResponse)slos.Execute(req);";
               requestMain += "</code></pre>";
               var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
               req.open("POST", SDK.SAMPLES._getServerUrl(), true)
               // Responses will return XML. It isn't possible to return JSON.
               req.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/xml, text/xml, */*");
               req.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/xml; charset=utf-8");
               req.setRequestHeader("SOAPAction", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/xrm/2011/Contracts/Services/IOrganizationService/Execute");
               var successCallback = null;
               var errorCallback = null;
               req.onreadystatechange = function () { SDK.SAMPLES.CountAccountsResponse(req, successCallback, errorCallback); };
               req.send(requestMain);
           },
       CountAccountsResponse: function (req, successCallback, errorCallback) {
               ///<summary>
               /// Recieves the assign response
               ///</summary>
               ///<param name="req" Type="XMLHttpRequest">
               /// The XMLHttpRequest response
               ///</param>
               ///<param name="successCallback" Type="Function">
               /// The function to perform when an successfult response is returned.
               /// For this message no data is returned so a success callback is not really necessary.
               ///</param>
               ///<param name="errorCallback" Type="Function">
               /// The function to perform when an error is returned.
               /// This function accepts a JScript error returned by the _getError function
               ///</param>
               if (req.readyState == 4) {
               if (req.status == 200) {
               if (successCallback != null)
               { successCallback(); }
               }
               else {
                   errorCallback(SDK.SAMPLES._getError(req.responseXML));
               }
           }
       },
       _getError: function (faultXml) {
           ///<summary>
           /// Parses the WCF fault returned in the event of an error.
           ///</summary>
           ///<param name="faultXml" Type="XML">
           /// The responseXML property of the XMLHttpRequest response.
           ///</param>
           var errorMessage = "Unknown Error (Unable to parse the fault)";
           if (typeof faultXml == "object") {
               try {
                   var bodyNode = faultXml.firstChild.firstChild;
                   //Retrieve the fault node
                   for (var i = 0; i < bodyNode.childNodes.length; i++) {
                       var node = bodyNode.childNodes[i];
                       //NOTE: This comparison does not handle the case where the XML namespace changes
                       if ("s:Fault" == node.nodeName) {
                       for (var j = 0; j < node.childNodes.length; j++) {
                           var faultStringNode = node.childNodes[j];
                           if ("faultstring" == faultStringNode.nodeName) {
                               errorMessage = faultStringNode.text;
                               break;
                           }
                       }
                       break;
                   }
               }
           }
           catch (e) { };
        }
        return new Error(errorMessage);
     },
 __namespace: true
};

To understand how to parse the response please review my post on using the DOM parser.

http://mileyja.blogspot.com/2011/03/microsoft-dynamics-crm-2011-parsing.html

Now you can call the SDK.SAMPLES.CountAccountsRequest function from your form jscript handler.

Thats all there is to it!

I hope this helps!