I am trying to count the number of unread messages in my DB Table but is proving to be very difficult. I've even read tutorials online but to no avail.

What I'm doing should be simple.

Here's what I'm trying to do:

```
COUNT NUMBER OF ROWS IN NOTIFICATIONSTABLE 
WHERE USERID = @0 AND MESSAGEWASREAD = FALSE

```

Can somebody please point me in the *right* direction? Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you

```
@helper RetrievePhotoWithName(int userid) 
{ 
    var database = Database.Open("SC"); 
    var name = database.QuerySingle("select FirstName, LastName, ProfilePicture from UserProfile where UserId = @0", userid); 
    var notifications =  database.Query("SELECT COUNT(*) as 'counter' FROM Notifications WHERE UserID = @0 AND [Read] = @1", userid, false); 

var DisplayName = ""; 
if(notifications["counter"] < 1) 
{ 
    DisplayName = name["FirstName"] + " " + name["LastName"]; 
} 
else 
{ 
    DisplayName = name["FirstName"] + ", you have " + notifications["counter"] + " new messages."; 
} 
<a href="@Href("~/Home")" title="My Account"><img src="@Href("~/Shared/Assets/Images/" + name["ProfilePicture"] + ".png")" id="MiniProfilePicture" />&nbsp;@DisplayName</a> 

database.Close(); 

```

}