Count new records from Oracle function.

Question

Is it possible to count all the new records inserted? I have a script with a couple of insert statements, before I do commit all the actions done in the script I like to read the numbers of new records. I do not have a key that I can use to select those records so I have to make use of a possible Oracle internal option to find out which records are inserted in a certain table after the last commit. Is there such a option?
With kind regards,
Johan Louwers.

Answer 1

David is close, but sql%ROWCOUNT does not work at the sql prompt, not even for INSERT/SELECT.
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES (2, 'TWO');
1 row created.
SQL> exec DBMS_OUTPUT.Put_Line('The count is: '||sql%rowcount);
The count is:
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> commit;
Commit complete.
SQL> CREATE TABLE t1 as SELECT * FROM t WHERE 1=2;
Table created.
SQL> INSERT INTO t1
  2  SELECT * FROM t;
1 row created.
SQL> exec DBMS_OUTPUT.Put_Line('The count is: '||sql%rowcount);
The count is:
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> rollback;
Rollback complete.However, if you wrap the thing in a BEGIN/END block, then it works:
SQL> BEGIN
  2  INSERT INTO t1
  3  SELECT * FROM t;
  4  DBMS_OUTPUT.Put_Line('The count is: '||sql%rowcount);
  5  END;
  6  /
The count is: 1
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.Note that sql%rowcount is not cumulative, it gets reset for every DML operation, so if you have more than one INSERT, and you want to know how many rows were inserted in total, you will need to put the rowcount into a variable and add it up yourself.
HTH
John