Question

Which approach is better to use if I need a member (sp or func) returning 2 parameters:

CREATE PROCEDURE Test
   @in INT,
   @outID INT OUT,
   @amount DECIMAL OUT
AS
BEGIN
   ...
END

or

CREATE FUNCTION Test
(
   @in INT
)
RETURNS @ret TABLE (outID INT, amount DECIMAL)
AS
BEGIN
   ...
END

What are pros and cons of each approach considering that the result will passed to another stored procedure:

EXEC Foobar @outID, @outAmount

Answer 1

A table valued function can only be used within a scope of a single SELECT statement. It cannot perform DML, catch exceptions etc.

On the other hand, it can return a set which can immediately be joined with another recordset in the same query.

If you use DML or don’t need to use the output parameters in the set-based statements, use a stored proc; otherwise create a TVF.