Can I rely on this SQL shortcut to save a query?

Question

Consider a table with a status field that holds one of two values:

| status | set('active','default') | YES  |  | active |

I need to know how many records are in the table, and additionally how many have the status set to active. I notice that SUM returns 1 for each record set to active and 2 for each record set to default:

mysql> select count(*), sum(status) from users;
+----------+-------------+
| count(*) | sum(status) |
+----------+-------------+
|        3 |           4 |
+----------+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select status from users;
+---------+
| status  |
+---------+
| default |
| active  |
| active  |
+---------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Can I rely on this behaviour? Is this a bad practice?

Answer 1

Answer to self!

A better way to perform the query in the OP in a single query would be to explicitly group by status:

mysql> SELECT COUNT(*) AS total, status FROM users GROUP BY status;
+-------+---------+
| total | status  |
+-------+---------+
|     2 | active  |
|     1 | default |
+-------+---------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

In addition to being clearer as to intention, this solution also works for the case in which status has more than two possible values.