OUTPUT Clause

OUTPUT Clause is a SQL clause in the SQL Server Specific category. SQL Server: returns values from DML statements (like PostgreSQL RETURNING). The syntax is INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE ... OUTPUT inserted.column, deleted.column;. It returns modified row values. A typical example: DELETE FROM employees OUTPUT deleted.name, deleted.salary WHERE department = 'Temp'; -- Shows deleted rows before removal UPDATE products SET price = price * 1.1 OUTPUT inserted.id, deleted.price AS old_price, inserted.price AS new_price; A close relative is STUFF(), which sQL Server: deletes a specified length of characters from a string and inserts another string at the start position. A close relative is FOR XML PATH, which sQL Server: converts query results to XML format. Commonly used for string concatenation hack. A close relative is TRY...CATCH, which sQL Server: structured error handling. Captures runtime errors in the CATCH block. More about this category: SQL Server-specific features — T-SQL, OUTPUT, TOP, PIVOT, STUFF, FOR XML.