Question

Having some issue with my function call please. I have a situation that I am yet unable to figure out. I have a simple function call like so . . .

If(@confirm ='Y') 
 BEGIN 
  SELECT  dbo.ReplaceString(@rawText, '2342345432', 'radefr', @User_no, @password,@email,' ',' ',GetDate() ,@company, @end,  @start, @remove) as messagetext 
 END

I have been able to verify that the function works fine as all it does is simple string replace using the parameters passed in. The problem I am having is that when I plug the call in as above, I get a null value returned instead of the string passed in initially as expected. Barring any errors in the code, is there any other situation when a function would return unexpected result?

  Function [dbo].[ReplaceString]
(
            @rawtext As Varchar(400), 
            @numbernum As Varchar(15), 
            @name As Varchar(25),   
            @userno As Bigint,  
            @password As Varchar(50) ,
            @email As Varchar(50) ,
            @keyword As VARCHAR(40),
            @litext As Varchar(500), 
            @datecreated As DateTime, 
            @company As Varchar(30), 
            @end As Varchar(140), 
            @start  As Varchar(140), 
            @remove As Varchar(200)

)
RETURNS VARCHAR(450)
AS 
BEGIN 

            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@name@@'', @ name)
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@number@@'', @numbernum)
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@company@@'', @company )
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@ssn@@'', @numbernum )
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@message@@'', @littext )
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@date@@'', CAST(@datecreated AS VARCHAR(10)) )

            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@keyword@@'', @ keyword )
            SELECT @message_text = Replace(@littext, @ keyword, '''' )
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@withoutkeyword@@'', @littext)
            SELECT @remove= Replace(@remove ''@@company@@'', @company)
            SELECT @start= Replace(@start, ''@@company@@'', @company)  
            SELECT @end = Replace(@end, ''@@company@@'', @company ) 
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@Settings[END]@@'',@end )
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@Settings[START]@@'', @start )
            SELECT @rawtext  = Replace( @rawtext , ''@@Settings[REMOVE]@@'', @remove)


         RETURN(@rawtext )

Answer 1

I don’t think that this is an appropriate use of SQL unless it’s an academic exercise. It’s not maintainable. It should be a CLR function or an external function.