What is the return value of Database.ExecuteSqlCommand?

Question

Modifying an answer from this question slightly, suppose I run this code:

public int SaveOrUpdate(MyEntity entity)
{
    var sql =  @"MERGE INTO MyEntity
                USING 
                (
                   SELECT   @id as Id
                            @myField AS MyField
                ) AS entity
                ON  MyEntity.Id = entity.Id
                WHEN MATCHED THEN
                    UPDATE 
                    SET     Id = @id
                            MyField = @myField
                WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
                    INSERT (Id, MyField)
                    VALUES (@Id, @myField);"

    object[] parameters = {
        new SqlParameter("@id", entity.Id),
        new SqlParameter("@myField", entity.myField)
    };
    return context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sql, parameters);
}

This will actually run and it returns an int. What does the int mean? The documentation just says

The result returned by the database after executing the command.

I did a couple tests and it looks like it's 1 if it modified a row, and 0 if nothing changed. Is the return value the number of rows modified?

Answer 1

For most databases, that means the number of rows affected by the command. I theory though, god forbid that such a thing exists, the database vendor is free to return whatever and you would then need to look in the documentation for the particular database for what the number means.