Please read:
http://www.webyog.co…exact-value.htm
Or simply execute
SHOW TABLE STATUS FROM `database` LIKE 'tablename';
Both places we execute SHOW TABLE STATUS. The rowcount here is an estimate with InnoDB (with MyISAM it is an exact count and same as what SELECT COUNT(*) returns. The rowcount is used internally by the server for optimizing the execution plan with JOINs etc. and here exact numbers are not very important.
Bug still I think I found a bug. We execute:
SHOW TABLE STATUS FROM `database`;
and not
SHOW TABLE STATUS FROM `database` LIKE 'tablename';
.. what could be slow and requires more memory client side that what is necessary.