Best Practices - Stored Procedure Logging

Question

If you have a long running SP, do you log somehow it's actions or just wait for this message?

"Command(s) completed successfully."

I assume, that there can be plenty solutions on this subject, but is there any best practice - a simple solution that is frequently used?

EDIT

I've found an interesting link on this subject

http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/brettk/archive/2006/09/21/12391.aspx

Article describes using a log table, but there's an issue

The logging procedure must be executed outside of any transaction

I can't call that insert outside, because of cursor that I use and insert a line to that table on every row.

Any ideas?

EDIT 2

Digging..

there's a xp_logevent in SQL Server. Did you try it?

What about SQL Server Profiler?

There's also Creating Log file for Stored Procedure

Answer 1

We generally use logging tables and take care around transactions. We pretty much avoid anything that involves going outside of SQL Server (e.g. writing to filesystem, calling external services, .NET assemblies, etc.)

We also try to avoid cursors -- is it possible your proc is long running because it's inefficient?

Answer 2

How are you invoking the stored procedure? If it is through Management Studio then you can easily print out the message as follows

RAISERROR ('Some debugging info', 0, 1) WITH NOWAIT

This is preferable to using PRINT as the message will appear immediately. These messages can also be caught in ADO.NET by wiring up a handler for the Connection.InfoMessage event.

I see that you have already listed SQL Profiler as a possibility. You might be interested to know that you can log your own user configurable events that can be seen in SQL Profiler.