Can I Use sp_spaceused to Return Number of Records into a Variable?

I've wrote something about this a couple of years ago: http://www.insidesql.org/faq/sp_spaceused-in-tabelle-unleiten. It's almost "code-only" so easy to understand even for non-German speakers.
However, since then, things have evolved and nowadays I use something like the following script to get the rowcount in my tables.
SELECT
S.name, P.NumberOfRows, S2.name
FROM
sys.sysobjects S
JOIN
sys.schemas S2 ON S.uid = S2.schema_id
JOIN
(SELECT
P.[object_id], P.rows AS NumberOfRows, O.schema_id
FROM
sys.partitions P
JOIN
sys.objects O ON P.[object_id] = O.[object_id]
WHERE
P.index_id = 1) P ON S2.schema_id = P.schema_id AND S.id = P.object_id
WHERE
S.xtype = 'U'
For getting the fragment numbers, there is a dedicated dynamic maangement function for it that provides you with all information you need:
SELECT
DB_NAME(IXStats.database_id) AS DatabaseName,
OBJECT_NAME (IXStats.[object_id]) AS TabellenName,
SIX.[Name] AS IndexName,
IXStats.avg_fragmentation_in_percent,
IXStats.index_type_desc,
IXStats.record_count
,IXStats.index_level
FROM
sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats (DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL, 'DETAILED') IXStats
JOIN
sys.indexes SIX ON IXStats.[object_id] = SIX.[object_id] AND IXStats.index_id = SIX.index_id
WHERE
IXStats.database_id = DB_ID()
ORDER BY
2
Be aware though, that this may run for quite some time in 'DETAILED' mode on a larger database. If you are only interested in the fragmentation and not the number of rows, just switch 'DETAILED' to NULL and it should run very quick.

Cool tip Frank, the second one extends further information ...[]