Getting rows affected in stored procedure INSERT statement with NOCOUNT OFF - sql-server

Question

I have a stored procedure in SQL Server 2014 where I first delete data from a table and execute another stored procedure as shown below. I don't care about rows affected on this code so I use SET NOCOUNT ON. I then perform an Insert statement first setting SET NOCOUNT OFF. I would expect the stored procedure to return the rows affected automatically from the INSERT but that has not proven to be the case. I searched SO and found the ##ROWCOUNT and that is working. However, is that really required? Why wouldn't the INSERT statement in the code below return the records affected?
ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[SaveTextSetting]
#UserId INT ,
#SettingType INT = 0 ,
#SettingValue NVARCHAR(MAX)
AS
BEGIN
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON;
DELETE FROM Settings
WHERE UserId = #UserId
AND SettingType = #SettingType;
EXEC dbo.PurgeExpiredSettings;
END;
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT OFF;
INSERT INTO dbo.Settings
( UserId ,
SettingsText ,
SettingType
)
VALUES ( #UserId ,
#SettingValue ,
#SettingType
);
RETURN ##ROWCOUNT; --without this we don't get the rows affected
END;
END;

Answer 1

Are you sure?
CREATE PROCEDURE spTest AS RETURN
GO
ALTER PROCEDURE spTest
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT OFF
DECLARE #rt int
CREATE TABLE #t (
v int NOT NULL
)
INSERT INTO #t (v)
SELECT v FROM (VALUES (1), (1), (2)) AS t (v)
SET #rt = ##ROWCOUNT
DROP TABLE #t
RETURN #rt
END
GO
DECLARE #rt int
EXEC #rt = spTest
SELECT #rt
GO
DROP PROCEDURE spTest
GO

Answer 2

I would use an output param something like.....
ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[SaveTextSetting]
#UserId INT ,
#SettingType INT = 0 ,
#SettingValue NVARCHAR(MAX),
#RowCount INT OUTPUT
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON;
DELETE FROM Settings
WHERE UserId = #UserId
AND SettingType = #SettingType;
EXEC dbo.PurgeExpiredSettings;
INSERT INTO dbo.Settings( UserId ,SettingsText ,SettingType)
VALUES ( #UserId ,#SettingValue ,#SettingType);
SET #RowCount= ##ROWCOUNT;
END