Number of rows affected by an UPDATE in PL/SQL

Question

I have a PL/SQL function (running on Oracle 10g) in which I update some rows. Is there a way to find out how many rows were affected by the UPDATE? When executing the query

Answer 1

SQL%ROWCOUNT can also be used without being assigned (at least from Oracle 11g).

As long as no operation (updates, deletes or inserts) has been performed within the current block, SQL%ROWCOUNT is set to null. Then it stays with the number of line affected by the last DML operation:

say we have table CLIENT

create table client (
  val_cli integer
 ,status varchar2(10)
)
/

We would test it this way:

begin
  dbms_output.put_line('Value when entering the block:'||sql%rowcount);

  insert into client 
            select 1, 'void' from dual
  union all select 4, 'void' from dual
  union all select 1, 'void' from dual
  union all select 6, 'void' from dual
  union all select 10, 'void' from dual;  
  dbms_output.put_line('Number of lines affected by previous DML operation:'||sql%rowcount);

  for val in 1..10
    loop
      update client set status = 'updated' where val_cli = val;
      if sql%rowcount = 0 then
        dbms_output.put_line('no client with '||val||' val_cli.');
      elsif sql%rowcount = 1 then
        dbms_output.put_line(sql%rowcount||' client updated for '||val);
      else -- >1
        dbms_output.put_line(sql%rowcount||' clients updated for '||val);
      end if;
  end loop;  
end;

Resulting in:

Value when entering the block:
Number of lines affected by previous DML operation:5
2 clients updated for 1
no client with 2 val_cli.
no client with 3 val_cli.
1 client updated for 4
no client with 5 val_cli.
1 client updated for 6
no client with 7 val_cli.
no client with 8 val_cli.
no client with 9 val_cli.
1 client updated for 10