RE: External RE: Count records in SQL

Thank you ALL for your great explanations! 

What I am doing is setting up a purge process for our main packages.
This has NEVER been done as they always wanted to have all history for ever and ever.

This has caused several issues, not to say the least Invoice Numbers being reused some 15 years later.

1 - Get Purge through date (I have convinced them at 8 years)
2 - List all files to be purged and use SQL to determine number of records that are going to be purged using SQL.  
     	This will also verify that there are no locks on the file as well.
3 - Display list file files/records as a verification.
4 - If No locks found and continue is selected.	
	Create Purge Library
	Loop until done
	   Allocate file
	   CrtDupObj of each File in Purge Library
	   CPYF records from Live File to Duplicate file 
 	   Delete records from Live File using SQL
 	   Reorg file
	   UnAllocate file  

We have plenty of space on our box so no need to remove them from the system and want them somewhere incase
They MIGHT be needed in an inquiry.

Again, thank you all!  

-----Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L <rpg400-l-bounces-+hD5IHI5Xscn3HwCXmMcX9BPR1lH4CV8@public.gmane.org> On Behalf Of Birgitta Hauser
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2026 10:51 PM
To: 'RPG programming on IBM i' <[email protected]>
Subject: External RE: Count records in SQL

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

GET DIAGNOSTICS ... will only return information AFTER an SQL Statement is run.

ROW_COUNT: (Except from the SQL Reference) Identifies the number of rows associated with the previous SQL statement that was executed. If the previous SQL statement is a DELETE, INSERT, REFRESH, or UPDATE statement, ROW_COUNT identifies the number of rows deleted, inserted, or updated by that statement, excluding rows affected by either triggers or referential integrity constraints. If the previous SQL statement is a MERGE statement, ROW_COUNT identifies the total number of rows deleted, inserted, and updated by that statement, excluding rows affected by either triggers or referential integrity constraints. If the previous SQL statement is a multiple-row-fetch, ROW_COUNT identifies the number of rows fetched.
Otherwise, the value zero is returned.

May be DB2_NUMBER_ROWS would be the better option: (Except from the SQL
Reference)
If the previous SQL statement was an OPEN or a FETCH which caused the size of the result table to be known, returns the number of rows in the result table. For SENSITIVE cursors, this value can be thought of as an approximation since rows inserted and deleted will affect the next retrieval of this value. Otherwise, the value zero is returned.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards

Birgitta Hauser
Modernization - Education - Consulting on IBM i Database and Software Architect IBM Champion since 2020

"Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." (Les
Brown)
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." (Derek Bok) "What is worse than training your staff and losing them? Not training them and keeping them!"
"Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to. " (Richard Branson) "Learning is experience ... everything else is only information!" (Albert
Einstein)


-----Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L <rpg400-l-bounces-+hD5IHI5Xscn3HwCXmMcX9BPR1lH4CV8@public.gmane.org> On Behalf Of Jimmy Sansi
Sent: Thursday, 12 February 2026 21:44
To: RPG programming on IBM i <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Count records in SQL

What about ...

exec sql GET DIAGNOSTICS :Rows = ROW_COUNT;

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.5.0?topic=statements-get-diagnostics

On 2026-02-12 12:15, Jerry Forss wrote:

> I have a SQL
> SqlSelect = 'SELECT C6DcCd, ' +
> 'C6CvNb, '+
> 'C6AcDt, ' +
> 'C6FnSt,' +
> 'C6B9Cd  ' +
> 'From ' + %Trim(PurgeXALib) + '/MBC6REP ' + 'Where C6ACDT <= ' + 
> %EditC(PurgeDateCYMD : 'X');
>
> Instead of reading through the cursor, I want the number of records 
> found.
>
> How do I do that?
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