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Good SQL Error Handling in Stored Procedure

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7 May 2009CPOL 25K   7   2
Good SQL error handling in stored procedure

When writing SQL procedures, it is really important to handle errors cautiously. Having that in mind will probably save your efforts, time and money. I have been working with MS-SQL 2000 and MS-SQL 2005 (I have not got the opportunity to work with MS-SQL 2008 yet) for many years now and I want to share with you how I handle errors in T-SQL Stored Procedure. This code has been working for many years now without a hitch.

N.B.: As another "best pratice", I suggest using only ONE level of TRY ... CATCH and only ONE level of TRANSACTION encapsulation, as doing otherwise may not be 100% sure.

SQL
BEGIN TRANSACTION;
BEGIN TRY

-- Code in transaction go here

COMMIT TRANSACTION;

END TRY BEGIN CATCH

    -- Rollback on error
    ROLLBACK TRANSACTION;

    -- Raise the error with the appropriate message and error severity
    DECLARE @ErrMsg nvarchar(4000), @ErrSeverity int;
    SELECT @ErrMsg = ERROR_MESSAGE(), @ErrSeverity = ERROR_SEVERITY();
    RAISERROR(@ErrMsg, @ErrSeverity, 1);

END CATCH;

In conclusion, I will just mention that I have been using this code with .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5 and it works like a charm. The .NET TDS parser throws back a SQLException which is ideal to work with.

Original post URL: http://sp.nitriques.com/sites/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=15

Category: CodeProject

Published: 5/7/2009 11:22 PM

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
President Solutions Nitriques inc.
Canada Canada
I am the general director of Nitriques Solutions inc. We build software and web solutions for enterprises using .NET 2.0 and 3.5, MS-SQL Server 2005 running on various Server 2003.

We offer a variety of products, from simple corporate web site with CMS to complete integration of intranets.

I have been working with asp et MS-SQL since 2002. I am particularly interested in web development 2.0, ajax, css, xhtml, asp.net, jQuery, Open Social and other web technologies.

In my spare time (when this concept exist in my life), i like to snowboard, skydive or free fall in wind tunnels and learning cool new stuff about anything.

Please feel free to contact me. http://www.nitriques.com

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralMy vote of 1 Pin
Stephen Brannan8-May-09 6:39
Stephen Brannan8-May-09 6:39 
AnswerRe: My vote of 1 Pin
Nicolas Brassard9-May-09 15:45
Nicolas Brassard9-May-09 15:45 
Hi,

I did not do it because it is not the subject of this article.

Encapsulating multiple transaction blocks with Try ... catch will fail if you raise the error back in the catch block.
You will have the ROLLBACK twice, and this fails, since rollback aborts ALL transactions, whatever their nesting level.

Hope this answer your question.

Nicolas Brassard: www.nitriques.com

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