Use the RETURNING Clause

Frequently, the application requires information about the row affected by a SQL operation, for illustration, to produce a report or take a subsequent action. The INSERT, UPDATE, & DELETE statements can involve a RETURNING clause that returns column values from the affected row into the PL/SQL variables or host variables. This removes the requirement to SELECT the row after an insert or update, or before a delete. As a result, less network round trips, less server CPU time, smaller number of cursors, and less server memory are needed.

In the illustration below, you update the salary of an employee and at similar time retrieve the employee's name and new salary into the PL/SQL variables.

PROCEDURE update_salary (emp_id NUMBER) IS

name VARCHAR2(15);

new_sal NUMBER;

BEGIN

UPDATE emp SET sal = sal * 1.1

WHERE empno = emp_id

RETURNING ename, sal INTO name, new_sal;