I have three stored procedures Sp1, Sp2 and Sp3.
The first one (Sp1) will execute the second one (Sp2) and save returned data into #tempTB1 and the second one will execute the third one (Sp3) and save data into #tempTB2.
If I execute the Sp2 it will work and it will return me all my data from the Sp3, but the problem is in the Sp1, when I execute it it will display this error:
INSERT EXEC statement cannot be nested
I tried to change the place of execute Sp2 and it display me another error:
Cannot use the ROLLBACK statement
within an INSERT-EXEC statement.
This is a common issue when attempting to 'bubble' up data from a chain of stored procedures. A restriction in SQL Server is you can only have one INSERT-EXEC active at a time. I recommend looking at How to Share Data Between Stored Procedures which is a very thorough article on patterns to work around this type of problem.
For example a work around could be to turn Sp3 into a Table-valued function.
This is the only "simple" way to do this in SQL Server without some giant convoluted created function or executed sql string call, both of which are terrible solutions:
create a temp table
openrowset your stored procedure data into it
EXAMPLE:
INSERT INTO #YOUR_TEMP_TABLE
SELECT * FROM OPENROWSET ('SQLOLEDB','Server=(local);TRUSTED_CONNECTION=YES;','set fmtonly off EXEC [ServerName].dbo.[StoredProcedureName] 1,2,3')
Note: You MUST use 'set fmtonly off', AND you CANNOT add dynamic sql to this either inside the openrowset call, either for the string containing your stored procedure parameters or for the table name. Thats why you have to use a temp table rather than table variables, which would have been better, as it out performs temp table in most cases.
OK, encouraged by jimhark here is an example of the old single hash table approach: -
CREATE PROCEDURE SP3 as
BEGIN
SELECT 1, 'Data1'
UNION ALL
SELECT 2, 'Data2'
END
go
CREATE PROCEDURE SP2 as
BEGIN
if exists (select * from tempdb.dbo.sysobjects o where o.xtype in ('U') and o.id = object_id(N'tempdb..#tmp1'))
INSERT INTO #tmp1
EXEC SP3
else
EXEC SP3
END
go
CREATE PROCEDURE SP1 as
BEGIN
EXEC SP2
END
GO
/*
--I want some data back from SP3
-- Just run the SP1
EXEC SP1
*/
/*
--I want some data back from SP3 into a table to do something useful
--Try run this - get an error - can't nest Execs
if exists (select * from tempdb.dbo.sysobjects o where o.xtype in ('U') and o.id = object_id(N'tempdb..#tmp1'))
DROP TABLE #tmp1
CREATE TABLE #tmp1 (ID INT, Data VARCHAR(20))
INSERT INTO #tmp1
EXEC SP1
*/
/*
--I want some data back from SP3 into a table to do something useful
--However, if we run this single hash temp table it is in scope anyway so
--no need for the exec insert
if exists (select * from tempdb.dbo.sysobjects o where o.xtype in ('U') and o.id = object_id(N'tempdb..#tmp1'))
DROP TABLE #tmp1
CREATE TABLE #tmp1 (ID INT, Data VARCHAR(20))
EXEC SP1
SELECT * FROM #tmp1
*/
My work around for this problem has always been to use the principle that single hash temp tables are in scope to any called procs. So, I have an option switch in the proc parameters (default set to off). If this is switched on, the called proc will insert the results into the temp table created in the calling proc. I think in the past I have taken it a step further and put some code in the called proc to check if the single hash table exists in scope, if it does then insert the code, otherwise return the result set. Seems to work well - best way of passing large data sets between procs.
This trick works for me.
You don't have this problem on remote server, because on remote server, the last insert command waits for the result of previous command to execute. It's not the case on same server.
Profit that situation for a workaround.
If you have the right permission to create a Linked Server, do it.
Create the same server as linked server.
in SSMS, log into your server
go to "Server Object
Right Click on "Linked Servers", then "New Linked Server"
on the dialog, give any name of your linked server : eg: THISSERVER
server type is "Other data source"
Provider : Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL server
Data source: your IP, it can be also just a dot (.), because it's localhost
Go to the tab "Security" and choose the 3rd one "Be made using the login's current security context"
You can edit the server options (3rd tab) if you want
Press OK, your linked server is created
now your Sql command in the SP1 is
insert into #myTempTable
exec THISSERVER.MY_DATABASE_NAME.MY_SCHEMA.SP2
Believe me, it works even you have dynamic insert in SP2
I found a work around is to convert one of the prods into a table valued function. I realize that is not always possible, and introduces its own limitations. However, I have been able to always find at least one of the procedures a good candidate for this. I like this solution, because it doesn't introduce any "hacks" to the solution.
I encountered this issue when trying to import the results of a Stored Proc into a temp table, and that Stored Proc inserted into a temp table as part of its own operation. The issue being that SQL Server does not allow the same process to write to two different temp tables at the same time.
The accepted OPENROWSET answer works fine, but I needed to avoid using any Dynamic SQL or an external OLE provider in my process, so I went a different route.
One easy workaround I found was to change the temporary table in my stored procedure to a table variable. It works exactly the same as it did with a temp table, but no longer conflicts with my other temp table insert.
Just to head off the comment I know that a few of you are about to write, warning me off Table Variables as performance killers... All I can say to you is that in 2020 it pays dividends not to be afraid of Table Variables. If this was 2008 and my Database was hosted on a server with 16GB RAM and running off 5400RPM HDDs, I might agree with you. But it's 2020 and I have an SSD array as my primary storage and hundreds of gigs of RAM. I could load my entire company's database to a table variable and still have plenty of RAM to spare.
Table Variables are back on the menu!
I recommend to read this entire article. Below is the most relevant section of that article that addresses your question:
Rollback and Error Handling is Difficult
In my articles on Error and Transaction Handling in SQL Server, I suggest that you should always have an error handler like
BEGIN CATCH
IF ##trancount > 0 ROLLBACK TRANSACTION
EXEC error_handler_sp
RETURN 55555
END CATCH
The idea is that even if you do not start a transaction in the procedure, you should always include a ROLLBACK, because if you were not able to fulfil your contract, the transaction is not valid.
Unfortunately, this does not work well with INSERT-EXEC. If the called procedure executes a ROLLBACK statement, this happens:
Msg 3915, Level 16, State 0, Procedure SalesByStore, Line 9 Cannot use the ROLLBACK statement within an INSERT-EXEC statement.
The execution of the stored procedure is aborted. If there is no CATCH handler anywhere, the entire batch is aborted, and the transaction is rolled back. If the INSERT-EXEC is inside TRY-CATCH, that CATCH handler will fire, but the transaction is doomed, that is, you must roll it back. The net effect is that the rollback is achieved as requested, but the original error message that triggered the rollback is lost. That may seem like a small thing, but it makes troubleshooting much more difficult, because when you see this error, all you know is that something went wrong, but you don't know what.
I had the same issue and concern over duplicate code in two or more sprocs. I ended up adding an additional attribute for "mode". This allowed common code to exist inside one sproc and the mode directed flow and result set of the sproc.
what about just store the output to the static table ? Like
-- SubProcedure: subProcedureName
---------------------------------
-- Save the value
DELETE lastValue_subProcedureName
INSERT INTO lastValue_subProcedureName (Value)
SELECT #Value
-- Return the value
SELECT #Value
-- Procedure
--------------------------------------------
-- get last value of subProcedureName
SELECT Value FROM lastValue_subProcedureName
its not ideal, but its so simple and you don't need to rewrite everything.
UPDATE:
the previous solution does not work well with parallel queries (async and multiuser accessing) therefore now Iam using temp tables
-- A local temporary table created in a stored procedure is dropped automatically when the stored procedure is finished.
-- The table can be referenced by any nested stored procedures executed by the stored procedure that created the table.
-- The table cannot be referenced by the process that called the stored procedure that created the table.
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#lastValue_spGetData') IS NULL
CREATE TABLE #lastValue_spGetData (Value INT)
-- trigger stored procedure with special silent parameter
EXEC dbo.spGetData 1 --silent mode parameter
nested spGetData stored procedure content
-- Save the output if temporary table exists.
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#lastValue_spGetData') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
DELETE #lastValue_spGetData
INSERT INTO #lastValue_spGetData(Value)
SELECT Col1 FROM dbo.Table1
END
-- stored procedure return
IF #silentMode = 0
SELECT Col1 FROM dbo.Table1
Declare an output cursor variable to the inner sp :
#c CURSOR VARYING OUTPUT
Then declare a cursor c to the select you want to return.
Then open the cursor.
Then set the reference:
DECLARE c CURSOR LOCAL FAST_FORWARD READ_ONLY FOR
SELECT ...
OPEN c
SET #c = c
DO NOT close or reallocate.
Now call the inner sp from the outer one supplying a cursor parameter like:
exec sp_abc a,b,c,, #cOUT OUTPUT
Once the inner sp executes, your #cOUT is ready to fetch. Loop and then close and deallocate.
If you are able to use other associated technologies such as C#, I suggest using the built in SQL command with Transaction parameter.
var sqlCommand = new SqlCommand(commandText, null, transaction);
I've created a simple Console App that demonstrates this ability which can be found here:
https://github.com/hecked12/SQL-Transaction-Using-C-Sharp
In short, C# allows you to overcome this limitation where you can inspect the output of each stored procedure and use that output however you like, for example you can feed it to another stored procedure. If the output is ok, you can commit the transaction, otherwise, you can revert the changes using rollback.
On SQL Server 2008 R2, I had a mismatch in table columns that caused the Rollback error. It went away when I fixed my sqlcmd table variable populated by the insert-exec statement to match that returned by the stored proc. It was missing org_code. In a windows cmd file, it loads result of stored procedure and selects it.
set SQLTXT= declare #resets as table (org_id nvarchar(9), org_code char(4), ^
tin(char9), old_strt_dt char(10), strt_dt char(10)); ^
insert #resets exec rsp_reset; ^
select * from #resets;
sqlcmd -U user -P pass -d database -S server -Q "%SQLTXT%" -o "OrgReport.txt"
I need to copy a table from one database to another. My first guess was using following statement from my source code:
SELECT *
INTO TARGETDB.SCHEMA.TABLENAME
FROM SCHEMA.TABLENAME
(Edit: I know it won't set Primary Key's etc, that's okay)
Sadly the classes I have to use in my project pretty much destroy this statement and I have no possibility to work around that.
My next idea was creating a function or procedure in the SQL Server database, so I could use
SCHEMA.FUNCTNAME paramTARGETDB, paramTABLENAME
as statement from my code.
My current procedure looks like this:
CREATE PROCEDURE [SCHEMA].FUNCTNAME
#pVC_TARGETDB VARCHAR(240),
#pVC_TABLENAME VARCHAR(240)
AS
BEGIN
SELECT *
INTO #pVC_TARGETDB.SYSADM.#pVC_TABLENAME
FROM SCHEMA.#pVC_TABLENAME
END
but my knowledge of SQL isn't that big, and SQL Server Management Studio tells me there are syntax errors. Every #pVC_* is marked (Edit: In the first two occurances, they're not marked. Only in the block between BEGIN and END). The message I get is:
"Syntax Error near #pVC_* Expecting ID, QUOTED_ID or '.'."
I tried nearly every way of writing it I could imagine or find with Google, maybe it's easy to solve, maybe it's not. I couldn't do it, please help me.
You can dynamically create the SQL statement then execute it
DECLARE #SQL NVARCHAR(MAX)
SET #SQL =
('SELECT *
INTO ' + #pVC_TARGETDB + '.SYSADM.' + #pVC_TABLENAME +
' FROM
SCHEMA.' + #pVC_TABLENAME)
EXEC (#SQL)
The following tsql fails:
IF OBJECT_ID('FDSCorp.XLFILES') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
DELETE FROM FDSCorp.XLFILES;
INSERT INTO FDSCorp.XLFILES
SELECT DISTINCT * FROM dbo.XLFILES;
END
ELSE
exec sp_changeobjectowner XLFILES, FDSCorp;
Error:
The image data type cannot be selected as DISTINCT because it is not comparable.
Yes XLFilES has an image column, but in this case FDSCorp.XLFILES doesn't exist so that distinct code would never get to run.
This code is generated for each table in the database and I know that this section of the code will never be run on a table where it could fail due to the distinct issue.
I really don't want to have to overcomplicate the code checking for types which I can't use distinct with if that scenario could never happen in a real situation.
Is there some way I can bypass this check?
The only way to avoid the error is for you to prevent the server from "seeing" the code you don't want it to compile. Each batch is compiled entirely (including every statement, ignoring control flow) before execution starts:
IF OBJECT_ID('FDSCorp.XLFILES') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
DELETE FROM FDSCorp.XLFILES;
exec sp_executesql N'INSERT INTO FDSCorp.XLFILES
SELECT DISTINCT * FROM dbo.XLFILES;';
END
ELSE
exec sp_changeobjectowner XLFILES, FDSCorp;
Now, when this batch is compiled, it won't attempt to compile the INSERT, since so far as this batch is concerned, it's just a string literal.
I have a lump of SQL that looks a little like this
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.databases WHERE name = '{FOO}')
BEGIN
EXECUTE ('CREATE DATABASE {FOO}')
ALTER DATABASE {FOO} SET AUTO_CLOSE OFF
END
{FOO} is replaced at runtime with the name of a user configurable database. The logic is that I don't want to create the database if it already exists.
If {FOO} is tempdb then I get a failure when the query runs
Option 'AUTO_CLOSE' cannot be set in database 'tempdb'.
My question is why do I get this failure? SELECT * FROM sys.databases WHERE name = 'tempdb' returns zero results so surely my whole BEGIN/END pair shouldn't run? Indeed, if I put a print statement between begin and end, I don't see any output.
My guess is that SQL Server is doing some kind of linting on the SQL to make sure I don't muck around with tempdb? I have solved the problem by using EXECUTE instead, but I'm a little confused why I have to!
Try ensuring both commands are separate and within dynamic SQL, then the change to tempdb won't be caught by the parser:
EXEC sp_executesql N'CREATE DATABASE {FOO};';
EXEC sp_executesql N'ALTER DATABASE {FOO} SET AUTO_CLOSE OFF;';
This is similar to the reason you can't do this:
IF 1 = 1
BEGIN
CREATE TABLE #t1(id INT);
END
ELSE
BEGIN
CREATE TABLE #t1(x NVARCHAR(255));
END
Even though you and I know that only one of those #t1 code paths will ever be reached, SQL Server presumes that both paths could be reached at runtime, and so complains at parse time.
Is it possible, in a script executed in MS SQL Server 2005, to copy a trigger from one database to another?
I've been asked to write a test script for a trigger my project is using. Our test structure is to create an empty database containing only the object under test, then execute a script on that database that creates all the other objects needed for the test, fills them, runs whatever tests are needed, compares the results against expected results, and then drops everything except the object under test.
I can't just create a database that is empty except for the trigger, because the trigger depends on several tables. My test script currently runs the CREATE TRIGGER after all the required tables are created, but this won't do because the test script isn't allowed to contain the object under test.
What's been suggested is that, instead of running a CREATE TRIGGER, I somehow copy the trigger at that point in the script from the live database to the test database. I've had a quick Google and haven't found a way to do this. Thus my question - is this even possible, and if so, how can I do it?
You could read the text of the trigger with sp_helptext (triggername)
Or you can select the text into a variable and execute that:
declare #sql varchar(8000)
select #sql = object_definition(object_id)
from sys.triggers
where name = 'testtrigger'
EXEC #sql
I have a stored procedure that copies a bunch of tables to a test database. To make it less prone to mistakes that could potentially change the wrong database, I want to avoid using USE and instead explicitly specify per statement which database the trigger is copied from and to.
With the help of this answer, I came up with this solution:
DECLARE #sql NVARCHAR(MAX);
EXEC SourceDB.sys.sp_executesql
N'SELECT #output = (SELECT OBJECT_DEFINITION(OBJECT_ID(''TriggerName'')))',
N'#output VARCHAR(MAX) OUTPUT',
#output = #sql OUTPUT;
EXEC DestDB.sys.sp_executesql #sql;