Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to use table variable in a dynamic sql statement?

If I do what I want to do with a TEMPORARY TABLE, it works fine:

DECLARE @CTRFR VARCHAR(MAX)

SET @CTRFR = 'select blah blah blah' -- <-- very long select statement. this returns a 0 or some greater number. Please note! --> I NEED THIS NUMBER.

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo][#CTRFRResult]') AND type IN (N'U') ) 
   DROP TABLE [dbo].[#CTRFRResult]

CREATE TABLE #CTRFRResult
(
  CTRFRResult VARCHAR(MAX)
)

SET @CTRFR = 'insert into #CTRFRResult ' + @CTRFR
EXEC(@CTRFR)

The above works fine.

The problem is that several databases are using the same TEMP table. Therefore I need to use a VARIABLE table (instead of a temporary table).

What I have below is not working because it says that the table must be declared.

DECLARE @CTRFRResult TABLE
(
   CTRFRResult VARCHAR(MAX)
)

SET @CTRFR = 'insert into @CTRFRResult ' + @CTRFR -- I think the issue is here.
EXEC(@CTRFR)

Setting @CTRFR to insert into... is not working because I’m assuming the table name is out of scope. How would I go about mimicking the temporary table code using a variable table?

The error message I’m getting is:

Must declare the table variable “@CTRFRResult”

Answer 1

You can’t use an @ table with dynamic SQL like that, you’d have to create the table within the dynamic sql statement as well.

But I don’t think you really have a problem at all with using # tables.

The # table will only be available to the current session – you can have 100s of sessions each creating their own version of it with no problems.

If you want to create a temp table that other sessions can access, you need to use ## instead.