JDBC executeUpdate always returning 1 even if no rows were updated?!

[Darryl Cheung]

I just started using MySQL and connected it to a Java front-end using MyConnector/J & JDBC. In my front-end, I save all the data in the table by calling executeUpdate with (UPDATE <table> SET <COL1>=<VAL>, <COL2>=<VAL> etc. WHERE <PRI-KEY> = <VAL>)

My question is: does executeUpdate() return the number of rows that matched or the number of rows that were actually changed?

When I run the query from the MySQL console, I can see that 1 rows matched and if the values of the columns are exactly the same as what I am using in my query, the number of rows changed is 0.

However, when I look at the return value of executeUpdate() in my Java program, it is always 1 even if the values are not updating anything.

The whole purpose of this exercise is to show how many rows actually have new data should the user change the data in the front-end GUI and did a save. To say that every row has changed even if no data has been updated isn't correct.

Any comments are appreciated. Thanks!

Darryl