Question

I’m trying to build a custom error message string for a bit of dynamic SQL. It looks like this when not wrapped in dynamic SQL:

SET @message = 'EXCEPTION: Msg ' + COALESCE(CAST(ERROR_NUMBER() AS NVARCHAR(20)), '[NULL]') + ', ' +
   'Level ' + COALESCE(CAST(ERROR_SEVERITY() AS NVARCHAR(20)), '[NULL]')  + ', ' +
   'State ' + COALESCE(CAST(ERROR_STATE() AS NVARCHAR(20)), '[NULL]') + ', ' +
   'Procedure ' + COALESCE(@PROCEDURE_NAME, '[NULL]') + ', ' +
   'Line ' + COALESCE(CAST(ERROR_LINE() AS NVARCHAR(20)), '[NULL]') + ', ' +
   'Message: ' + COALESCE(ERROR_MESSAGE(), '[NULL]') ;

I’m having trouble getting the quotes down so that it looks like this when it’s executed in the dynamic SQL. How should the quotes be arranged in the following:

EXEC @sql = 'BEGIN TRY
...
END TRY 
BEGIN CATCH 
DECLARE @PROCEDURE_NAME NVARCHAR(128);
SET @PROCEDURE_NAME = OBJECT_NAME(@@PROCID);

END CATCH
';

Answer 1

Your message code looks fine.

However, if you want to embed your @message in dynamic SQL, then you have to double every single quote.

This is a pain to do by hand. So, I do the following:

1. Write the SQL as you have done.
2. Select it.
3. Type H (or choose from the menus). Put a single quote (') in the search box, and two single quotes ('') in the replace with box.
4. Replace everything in the selection.