Question

Any idea if it’s possible to create a procedure in another database using T-SQL alone, where the name of the database is not known up front and has to be read from a table? Kind of like this example:

Use [MasterDatabase] Declare @FirstDatabase nvarchar(100) Select Top 1 @FirstDatabase=[ChildDatabase] From [ChildDatabases] Declare @SQL nvarchar(4000) Declare @CRLF nvarchar(10) Set @CRLF=nchar(13)+nchar(10) Set @SQL =     'Use [+'@Firstdatabase+']'+@CRLF+     'Go'+@CRLF+     'Create Proc [Test] As Select 123' Exec (@SQL) 

See what I’m trying to do? This example fails because Go is actually not a T-SQL command but it something recognised by the query analyser/SQL management studio and produces an error. Remove the Go and it also fails because Create Proc must be the first line of the script. Arrgg!!

The syntax of T-SQL doesn’t allow you do things like this:

Create [OtherDatabase].[dbo].[Test]

Which is a shame as it would work a treat! You can do that with Select statements, shame it’s inconsistent:

Select * From [OtherDatabase]..[TheTable]

Cheers, Rob.

Answer 1

It’s a pain, but this is what I do. I took this from an example I found on sqlteam, I think – you might have some quoting issues with the way I did the indiscriminate REPLACE:

DECLARE @sql AS varchar(MAX) DECLARE @metasql as varchar(MAX) DECLARE @PrintQuery AS bit DECLARE @ExecQuery AS bit  SET @PrintQuery = 1 SET @ExecQuery = 0  SET @sql =  ' CREATE PROCEDURE etc. AS BEGIN END '  SET @metasql = ' USE OtherDatabase EXEC (''' + REPLACE(@sql, '''', '''''') + ''') '  IF @PrintQuery = 1     PRINT @metasql IF @ExecQuery = 1     EXEC (@metasql)