Return Into. Can I return the old value in an update statement?

Question

Hello - I have an update statement and I need the value of a field, prior to the update. Is it possible to use the Return Into to do this? Or do I have to have a separate select statement prior to the update statement in order to store that value in a variable?
Thanks!

Answer 1

RETURNING INTO is valid for an UPDATE, but it returns the new value, not the old value.
SCOTT @ nx102 Local> select * from a;
      COL1
         4
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00
SCOTT @ nx102 Local> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  declare
  2    l_old_col1 number;
  3  begin
  4    update a
  5       set col1=col1+1
  6     returning col1 into l_old_col1;
  7    dbms_output.put_line( l_old_col1 );
  8* end;
SCOTT @ nx102 Local> /
5
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.00If you are trying to track historical changes, have you looked at Workspace Manager? That can be far easier than writing your own change tracking code...
Justin