Do I have to include “SELECT @@RowCount” if I have more than one SQL statement?

Question

I know that, if I execute a single SQL statement that UPDATEs or DELETEs some data, that it will return the number of rows affected.

But if I have multiple SQL statements in a sql script, and I want to know the number of rows affected from the last statement executed, will it still return that automatically, or do I need a

SELECT @@RowCount

at the end of the script?

The code in question is not a Stored Procedure. Rather, it is a parameterized SQL script stored in an arbitrary location, executed using the ExecuteStoreCommand function in Entity Framework, as in:

var numberOfRowsAffected = context.ExecuteStoreCommand<int>(mySqlScript, parameters);

Answer 1

It depends on the NOCOUNT setting when executing your quer(y/ies).

If NOCOUNT is ON then no DONE_IN_PROC messages will NOT be returned.

If NOCOUNT is OFF , the default setting, then DONE_IN_PROC messages will be returned, (eg. counts).

Both of these situations are different to executing,

SELECT @@ROWCOUNT;

which will return a result set with a single scalar value, different from a DONE_IN_PROC message. This will occur, regardless of the setting of NOCOUNT .

I believe that SELECT @@ROWCOUNT is sometimes used to make Entity Framework "play" with more complex TSQL statements because EF both requires

1. Requires a count for post validation
2. And will accept a scalar number result set as a substitute for a DONE_IN_PROC message.

Its important that SELECT @@ROWCOUNT; is executed immediately after the last query statement because many statements will reset @@ROWCOUNT and therefore yield an unexpected result.

Answer 2

Just to be specific on answer part, you would need to add SELECT @@RowCount to return number of rows affected by last statement.

I think confusion might be due to rows returned in SSMS window while executing query.By default SSMS shows number of rows returned for all sql statements but it returns affected rows as message not a dataset .

Answer 3

@@ROWCOUNT will automatically return number of rows effected by the last statement.

Please find the msdn link here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187316.aspx