You can use the ExecuteNonQuery to perform catalog operations (for example, querying the structure of a database or creating database objects such as tables), or to change the data in a database without using a DataSet by executing UPDATE, INSERT, or DELETE statements.

Although the ExecuteNonQuery does not return any rows, any output parameters or return values mapped to parameters are populated with data.

For UPDATE, INSERT, and DELETE statements, the return value is the number of rows affected by the command. For all other types of statements, the return value is -1.

The following example creates an instance of the derived class, OleDbCommand, and then executes it. To accomplish this, the method is passed a string that is a SQL SELECT statement and a string to use to connect to the data source.

Private Sub CreateOleDbCommand( _
    ByVal queryString As String, ByVal connectionString As String)
    Using connection As New OleDbConnection(connectionString)
        connection.Open()
        Dim command As New OleDbCommand(queryString, connection)
        command.ExecuteNonQuery()
    End Using
End Sub

static private void CreateOleDbCommand(
    string queryString, string connectionString)
{
    using (OleDbConnection connection = new 
               OleDbConnection(connectionString))
    {
        connection.Open();
        OleDbCommand command = new 
            OleDbCommand(queryString, connection);
        command.ExecuteNonQuery();
    }
}

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98, Windows CE, Windows Mobile for Smartphone, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC, Xbox 360, Zune

.NET Framework

.NET Compact Framework

XNA Framework

Reference