Can I create a One-Time-Use Function in a Script or Stored Procedure?

Question

In SQL Server 2005, is there a concept of a one-time-use, or local function declared inside of a SQL script or Stored Procedure? I'd like to abstract away some complexity in a script I'm writing, but it would require being able to declare a function.

Just curious. Thanks!!

Answer 1

You can call CREATE Function near the beginning of your script and DROP Function near the end.

Answer 2

Common Table Expressions let you define what are essentially views that last only within the scope of your select, insert, update and delete statements. Depending on what you need to do they can be terribly useful.

Answer 3

You can create temp stored procedures like:

create procedure #mytemp as
begin
   select getdate() into #mytemptable;
end

in an SQL script, but not functions. You could have the proc store it's result in a temp table though, then use that information later in the script ..

Ron

Answer 4

In scripts you have more options and a better shot at rational decomposition. Look into SQLCMD mode (Query Menu -> SQLCMD mode), specifically the :setvar and :r commands.

Within a stored procedure your options are very limited. You can't create define a function directly with the body of a procedure. The best you can do is something like this, with dynamic SQL:

create proc DoStuff
as begin

  declare @sql nvarchar(max)

  /*
  define function here, within a string
  note the underscore prefix, a good convention for user-defined temporary objects
  */
  set @sql = '
    create function dbo._object_name_twopart (@object_id int)
    returns nvarchar(517) as
    begin
      return 
        quotename(object_schema_name(@object_id))+N''.''+
        quotename(object_name(@object_id))
    end
  '

  /*
  create the function by executing the string, with a conditional object drop upfront
  */
  if object_id('dbo._object_name_twopart') is not null drop function _object_name_twopart
  exec (@sql)

  /*
  use the function in a query
  */
  select object_id, dbo._object_name_twopart(object_id) 
  from sys.objects
  where type = 'U'

  /*
  clean up
  */
  drop function _object_name_twopart

end
go

This approximates a global temporary function, if such a thing existed. It's still visible to other users. You could append the @@SPID of your connection to uniqueify the name, but that would then require the rest of the procedure to use dynamic SQL too.