[dingaling]

> 2) Always start UPDATE or DELETE queries by writing them as SELECT;

On that point, I'd love a database or SQL spec extension that provided a 'dry-run' mode for UPDATE or DELETE and which would report how many rows would be impacted.

-- 123338817 rows will be affected

Oooops made an error!

[carterehsmith]

> I'd love a database or SQL spec extension that provided a 'dry-run' mode for UPDATE or DELETE and which would report how many rows would be impacted.

I mean, if your DB supports transactions, you are in luck.

Start a transaction (that may be different among vendors - BEGIN TRANSACTION or SET AUTOCOMMIT=0 etc) and run your stuff.

If everything looks good, commit.

If you get OOOps number of records, just rollback.