Question

In SQL Server 2005, is there a way of deleting rows and being told how many were actually deleted?

I could do a select count(*) with the same conditions, but I need this to be utterly trustworthy.

My first guess was to use the @@ROWCOUNT variables – but that isn’t set, e.g.

delete  from mytable  where datefield = '5-Oct-2008'   select @@ROWCOUNT  

always returns a 0.

MSDN suggests the OUTPUT construction, e.g.

delete from mytable  where datefield = '5-Oct-2008'  output datefield into #doomed  select count(*)  from #doomed 

this actually fails with a syntax error.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Have you tried SET NOCOUNT OFF?