Why does count and dc behave differently?

[palisetty]

I have written the query

index="main" host="web_application" 
| stats count by status

The result is:

status count
200 233056
400 4156
403 1658
404 3652
406 4184
408 4142
500 4088

I am happy with this. But when I use dc for the same,

index="main" host="web_application" 
| stats dc by status

I get:

status dc(JSESSIONID) dc(action) dc(bytes) dc(categoryId) dc(clientip) dc(date_hour) dc(date_mday) dc(date_minute) dc(date_month) dc(date_second) dc(date_wday) dc(date_year) dc(date_zone) dc(detail) dc(file) dc(host) dc(ident) dc(index) dc(items) dc(linecount) dc(method) dc(msg) dc(other) dc(password) dc(pg) dc(productId) dc(punct) dc(q) dc(referer) dc(referer_domain) dc(req_time) dc(root) dc(source) dc(sourcetype) dc(splunk_server) dc(start) dc(t) dc(timeendpos) dc(timestartpos) dc(uri) dc(uri_path) dc(uri_query) dc(user) dc(useragent) dc(version)
200 11192 5 3802 7 183 24 30 60 2 60 7 1 1 1 10 1 1 1 0 1 2 5 902 1 9 16 105 1 110 5 106359 2 1 1 1 1 0 7 7 95883 12 95879 1 26 1
400 1837 5 1595 1 182 24 30 60 2 60 7 1 1 0 5 1 1 1 0 1 2 0 794 0 0 2 80 0 13 4 2078 0 1 1 1 0 0 7 7 2021 5 2021 1 26 1
403 670 5 657 1 178 24 30 60 2 60 7 1 1 2 6 1 1 1 0 1 2 0 536 0 0 1 70 0 15 4 826 1 1 1 1 0 0 7 7 713 6 712 1 26 1
404 1624 5 1471 1 183 24 30 60 2 60 7 1 1 0 21 1 1 1 1 1 2 0 793 0 0 2 87 0 16 4 1826 7 1 1 1 0 1 7 7 1803 26 1743 1 26 1
406 1850 5 1635 1 182 24 30 60 2 60 7 1 1 0 5 1

Why is this? What is that I am missing?
It may be a dumb question but.

[richgalloway · Accepted solution]

dc is Distinct Count. It says how many unique values of the given field(s) exist. Since you did not supply a field name, it counted all fields and grouped them by the status field values.

Had you used dc(status) the result should have been 7.

count and dc generally are not interchangeable.