Everything you wanted to know about Stored Procedures

Introduction

Stored procedures can offer performance gains when used instead of regular queries. This article will start with the basics and give you the complete overview on stored procedures and how to use them. Have you ever thought what happens when your queries get to the database?. They are actually compiled each time you query and then executed, but this is not the ideal approach. A much better option would be to have the database server compile the query, store it in a compiled format and run it on request, without having to recompile it each and every time. This is where the concept of stored procedures comes into play.

In this article we are going to learn how stored procedures work, what the benefits of using stored procedures are, and also how to create simple as well as complex stored procedures that accept and return parameters. In this article I will be focusing on using Microsoft SQL Server, however many of the principles in this article can also apply to other RDBMS's such as Oracle.

Near the end of this article we will learn how to make changes to a stored procedure and drop existing stored procedures. By the end of this article you will be fully prepared to start using basic stored procedures in your applications

What are stored procedures

Stored procedures are collections of SQL statements and control-of-flow language. Stored procedures differ from ordinary SQL statements and from batches of SQL statements in that they are pre-compiled. The first time you run a procedure, SQL Server's query processor analyzes it and prepares an execution plan that is ultimately stored in a system table. The subsequent execution of the procedure is according to the stored plan. Since most of the query processing work has already been performed, stored procedures execute almost instantaneously.

Stored procedures are extremely similar to the constructs seen in other programming languages. They accept data in the form of input parameters that are specified at execution time. These input parameters (if implemented) are utilized in the execution of a series of statements that produce some result. This result is returned to the calling environment through the use of a recordset, output parameters and/or a return code.

Stored procedures in SQL Server are similar to procedures in other programming languages in that they can:

• Accept input parameters and return multiple values in the form of output parameters to the calling procedure or batch.
• Contain programming statements that perform operations in the database, including calling other procedures.
• Return a status value to a calling procedure or batch to indicate success or failure (and the reason for the failure). Benefits
• Precompiled: SQL Server compiles each stored procedure once and then reutilizes the execution plan. This results in tremendous performance boosts when stored procedures are called repeatedly.
• Reduced client/server traffic: If network bandwidth is a concern in your environment, you'll be happy to learn that stored procedures can reduce long SQL queries to a single line that is transmitted over the wire.
• Efficient reuse of code: Multiple users and client programs can use stored procedures. If you utilize them in a planned manner, you'll find the development cycle takes less time.
• Enhanced Security controls: You can grant users permission to execute a stored procedure independently of underlying table permissions.
• They allow faster execution: If the operation requires a large amount of Transact-SQL code or is performed repetitively, stored procedures can be faster than batches of Transact-SQL code. They are parsed and optimized when they are created, and an in-memory version of the procedure can be used after the procedure is executed the first time. Transact-SQL statements repeatedly sent from the client each time they run are compiled and optimized every time SQL Server executes them.
• Another benefit is that you can execute a stored procedure on either a local or remote SQL Server. This enables you to run processes on other machines and work with information across servers, not just local databases.
• An application program written in a language, such as C or Visual Basic, can also execute stored procedures, providing an optimum solution between the client-side software and SQL Server.

Defining Stored Procedures

You use the CREATE PROC[EDURE] statement to create a stored procedure. The maximum stored procedure name length is thirty characters. The syntax that you use to define a new procedure is as follows:

CREATE PROCEDURE [owner,] procedure_name [;number] 
[@parameter_name datatype [=default] [OUTput] 
... 
[@parameter_name datatype [=default] [OUTput] 
[FOR REPLICATION] | [WITH RECOMPILE] , ENCRYPTION 
AS sql_statements

In this example, a simple procedure is created that contains a SELECT statement to display all rows of a table. After the procedure is created, its name is entered on a line to execute the procedure.

Stored procedures can either be created by sending commands to SQL Server through ADO, or they can be created in the Query Analyzer application, which is the most popular way to do so.

Creating and Running a Stored Procedure

create procedure all_employees 
as select * from employees 
go 

exec all_employees 

name department badge 
-------------------- -------------------- 
Brat Smith Sales 1234 
Karen Jones Sales 5514 
( 2 row(s) affected) 

When you submit a stored procedure to the system, SQL Server compiles and verifies the routines within it. If any problems are found, the procedure is rejected and you'll need to determine what the problem is prior to re-submitting the routine. If your stored procedure references another, as yet unimplemented stored procedure, you'll receive a warning message, but the routine will still be installed.

If you leave the system with the stored procedure that you previously referred to uninstalled, then the user will receive an error message at runtime.

Stored procedures are treated like all other objects in the database. They are therefore subject to all of the same naming conventions and other limitations. For example, the name of a stored procedure cannot contain spaces, and it can be accessed using the database convention.

Using Parameters with SP

Stored procedures are very powerful but to be most effective the procedure must be somewhat dynamic, which enables you, the developer, to pass in values to be considered during the functioning of the stored procedure. Here are some general guidelines for using parameters with stored procedures:

• You can define one or more parameters in a procedure.
• You use parameters as named storage locations just like you would use the parameters as variables in conventional programming languages, such as C and Visual Basic.
• You precede the name of a parameter with an at symbol (@) to designate it as a parameter.
• Parameter names are local to the procedure in which they're defined.

You can use parameters to pass information into a procedure from the line that executes the parameter. You place the parameters after the name of the procedure on a command line, with commas to separate the list of parameters if there is more than one. You use system data types to define the type of information to be expected as a parameter.

In example below, the procedure is defined with three input parameters. The defined input parameters appear within the procedure in the position of values in the VALUE clause of an INSERT statement. When the procedure is executed, three literal values are passed into the INSERT statement within the procedure as a parameter list. A SELECT statement is executed after the stored procedure is executed to verify that a new row was added through the procedure.

Creating a Stored Procedure with Input Parameters

create procedure proc4 (@p1 char(15), @p2 char(20), @p3 int) as 
insert into Workers 
values (@p1, @p2, @p3) 
go 

proc4 `Brat',Sales,3333 
go 

select * from Workers 
where Badge=3333 

Name Department Badge 
--------- --------------- 
Brat Sales 3333 

(1 row(s) affected).

Calling Stored Procedures from Your Application

On the application side, it can be quite cumbersome to have to specify each value on every call to the stored procedure, even in cases where the value is NULL. In those cases, the calling application can use named arguments to pass information to SQL Server and the stored procedure. For example, if your stored procedure allows up to three different arguments, name, address, and phone, you can call the routine as follows:

exec sp_routine @name="blah" 

Displaying and Editing Procedures

You use the system procedure sp_helptext to list the definition of a procedure, and sp_help to display control information about a procedure. The system procedures sp_helptext and sp_help are used to list information about other database objects, such as tables, rules, and defaults, as well as stored procedures.

Making Changes and Dropping Stored Procedures

Two closely related tasks that you'll no doubt have to perform are making changes to existing stored procedures and removing no longer used stored procedures.

Changing an Existing Stored Procedure

Stored procedures cannot be modified in place, so you're forced to first drop the procedure, then create it again. Unfortunately, there is no ALTER statement that can be used to modify the contents of an existing procedure. These stems largely from the query plan that is created and from the fact that stored procedures are compiled after they are initiated.

Because the routines are compiled and the query plan relies on the compiled information, SQL Server uses a binary version of the stored procedure when it is executed. It would be difficult or impossible to convert from the binary representation of the stored procedure back to English to allow for edits. For this reason, it's imperative that you maintain a copy of your stored procedures in a location other than SQL Server. Although SQL Server can produce the code that was used to create the stored procedure, you should always maintain a backup copy.

You can pull the text associated with a stored procedure by using the sp_helptext system stored procedure. The syntax of sp_helptext is as follows:

sp_helptext procedure_name 

Removing Existing Stored Procedures

You use the DROP PROCEDURE statement to drop a stored procedure that you've created. Multiple procedures can be dropped with a single DROP PROCEDURE statement by listing multiple procedures separated by commas after the keywords DROP PROCEDURE in the syntax: DROP PROCEDURE procedure_name_1, ...,procedure_name_n

Example of stored procedure

Let's assume that we have the following table named Inventory:

This information is updated in real-time and warehouse managers are constantly checking the levels of products stored at their warehouse and available for shipment. In the past, each manager would run queries similar to the following:

SELECT Product, Quantity 
FROM Inventory 
WHERE Warehouse = 'FL'

This resulted in very inefficient performance at the SQL Server. Each time a warehouse manager executed the query, the database server was forced to recompile the query and execute it from scratch. It also required the warehouse manager to have knowledge of SQL and appropriate permissions to access the table information.

We can simplify this process through the use of a stored procedure. Let's create a procedure called sp_GetInventory that retrieves the inventory levels for a given warehouse. Here's the SQL code:

CREATE PROCEDURE sp_GetInventory 
@location varchar(10) 
AS 
SELECT Product, Quantity 
FROM Inventory 
WHERE Warehouse = @location 

Our Florida warehouse manager can then access inventory levels by issuing the command:

EXECUTE sp_GetInventory 'FL'

The New York warehouse manager can use the same stored procedure to access that area's inventory: EXECUTE sp_GetInventory 'NY'

Granted, this is a simple example, but the benefits of abstraction can be seen here. The warehouse manager does not need to understand the inner workings of the procedure. From a performance perspective, the stored procedure will work wonders. The SQL Sever creates an execution plan once and then reutilizes it by plugging in the appropriate parameters at execution time.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has shed some light on the basics and principles of why you should use stored procedures instead of regular SQL queries. If you're a Database administrator, then stored procedures are a great way to hide complex programming logic from your developers. If you're a developer who isn't too proficient in SQL, then allowing your database administrator to create procedures that you can plug values into is a great way to get the data you need without the performance hit of an inexperienced user creating the TSQL code.