PDO
PHP Manual

PDO::exec

Execute an SQL statement and return the number of affected rows

Description

public int PDO::exec ( string $statement )

PDO::exec executes an SQL statement in a single function call, returning the number of rows affected by the statement.

PDO::exec does not return results from a SELECT statement. For a SELECT statement that you only need to issue once during your program, consider issuing PDO::query. For a statement that you need to issue multiple times, prepare a PDOStatement object with PDO::prepare and issue the statement with PDOStatement::execute.

Parameters

statement

The SQL statement to prepare and execute.

Data inside the query should be properly escaped.

Return Values

PDO::exec returns the number of rows that were modified or deleted by the SQL statement you issued. If no rows were affected, PDO::exec returns 0.

Warning

This function may return Boolean FALSE, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to FALSE. Please read the section on Booleans for more information. Use the === operator for testing the return value of this function.

The following example incorrectly relies on the return value of PDO::exec, wherein a statement that affected 0 rows results in a call to die:

<?php
$db->exec() or die(print_r($db->errorInfo(), true));
?>

Examples

Example #1 Issuing a DELETE statement

Count the number of rows deleted by a DELETE statement with no WHERE clause.

<?php
$dbh = new PDO('odbc:sample', 'db2inst1', 'ibmdb2');

/* Delete all rows from the FRUIT table */
$count = $dbh->exec("DELETE FROM fruit WHERE colour = 'red'");

/* Return number of rows that were deleted */
print("Deleted $count rows.\n");
?>

The above example will output:

Deleted 1 rows.

See Also

  • PDO::prepare
  • PDO::query
  • PDOStatement::execute