PDO::exec

(PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7, PECL pdo >= 0.1.0)

Execute an SQL statement and return the number of affected rows

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.

Returns:

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:

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.