* David G Johnston (david.g.johnston@gmail.com) wrote:
> How about returning a placeholder row but with all the values replaced with
> NULL?
I don't think that would be a good approach.. A user actually looking
at those rows would be highly confused.
> In the absence of returning does the delete count show the total number of
> rows deleted or only the number of rows deleted that the user would be aware
> of if they issued a select with the same criteria? Whatever the answer the
> number of rows returned with returning should match the row count normally
> noted.
Today, everything matches up, yes. Having rows which are deleted but
which don't show up in RETURNING could certainly surprise people and
applications, which is why I tend to favor the 'all-or-error' approach
that others have also suggested. Adding that wouldn't be difficult,
though we'd need to decide which should be the default.
Thanks!
Stephen