How do we count rows using older versions of Hibernate (~2009)?

Question

For example, if we have a table Books, how would we count total number of book records with hibernate?

Answer 1

For older transcriptions of Hibernate (<5.2):

Considering the class name is Book:

return (Number) session.createCriteria("Book")

                  .setProjection(Projections.rowCount())

                  .uniqueResult();

It is at least a Number, most likely a Long.