I would buy explanation given here if it wasn't supported by ms docs link which says

Implicit transactions

A new transaction is implicitly started when the prior transaction completes, but each transaction...

It only checks on column. If table does not exist statement will fail. So in fact old-style if checking on information_schema.columns would be more bulletproof as you can search for...

Ok, i should write "when transaction fails and rollback is completed" :). But when rollback is done - you no longer need log records. Of course "discarded" does not mean...

Hello

RDBMS will always need some "temporary" space to keep "notes" about the progress of the transaction. In case transaction...

first - all available answers are wrong. "-1,-0,1" is the better looking although you will not get "-0"

second - with identity (-1,1) you can only get -1, 0, 1. If...

First query returns 0 ONLY when SET ROWCOUNT {something} is executed first. It doesn't matter to which value ROWCOUNT is set (2008EE).

Interesting issue but answer to the question is wrong

I know it's very old question but i think explanation here is wrong. Output is 0 not because there's no rows updated but because @@rowcount holds number of rows affected...