Question

I have a stored procedure that is called by another stored procedure

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_Test] 
AS
begin
declare @errorCode int
declare @lastIdentity int
select @errorCode = @@ERROR
    if @errorCode=0
    begin
        update Vehicle  set model='1996----------'
            where Make='MERC'
        select @errorCode = @@ERROR
        select @lastIdentity = @@IDENTITY
    end 

print 'usp_test lastIdentity='  + convert(varchar(10), isnull(@lastIdentity,0)) 
print 'usp_test errorCode=' + convert(varchar(10), @errorCode) 

end

If I call the stored procedure like this

declare @RetVal int

exec @RetVal=usp_Test

print 'return value is ' + convert(varchar(10), @RetVal)

I get the following messages

Msg 8152, Level 16, State 14, Procedure usp_Test, Line 14
String or binary data would be truncated.
The statement has been terminated.
usp_test lastIdentity=0
usp_test errorCode=8152
return value is -6

By adding RETURN 0 at the end and RETURN @errorCode after the select @errorCode… I will have a nice clean way of returning the error and subsequently handle it. I am surprise that without any RETURN’s I get a return value of -6. Can anyone explain why this is the case?

Answer 1

copied from this answer

If you have a RETURN statement with an
explicit return value, that is of
course the return value.

But if there is no RETURN statement,
but an error occurs during execution,
the return value is 10 minus the
severity level of the error. Division
by zero is level 16, thus the return
value is -6. Permissions errors are
typical level 14, thus the return
value is -4.

As you may guess this is not terribly
useful, but this: 0 is success, and
everything else is an error.