calling a remote sproc from a function

Question

I have a stored procedure SprocA resides on ServerA. SprocA takes 4 parameters, executes a dynamic sql and returns a record with 1 column (1 integer value). I'd like to be able to call this from a function FnB on ServerB so that I can use it in a stored procedure SprocB on server ServerB to return a recordset.

For example, I'd like to have something like this

Create Function FnB
    @CustomerId int
   ,@PartId     varchar(30)
   ,@DateFrom   datetime
   ,@DateTo     datetime
  Returns  int
As
Begin

  Declare @Ret  int
  Exec @Ret = LnkSrv.DB_History.dbo.SprocA(@CustomerId, @PartId, @DateFrom, @DateTo)

  Return @Ret
End   --FnB


Create Procedure SprocB
    @RowId int
As
Begin

  Select Partid, FnB(Customerid, Partid, DateFrom, DateTo) As TotalQtyShipped
       , AskedPrice, AskedQty, AppvPrice, AppvQty
  From Tbl_Header a
  Inner Join Tbl_Detail b On a.RowID = b.RowID
  Where a.RowID = @RowId

End   --SprocB

Possible result:

PartID     TotalQtyShipped     AskedPrice    AskedQty    AppvPrice    AppQty
pn1                   1000             10         100           10       100
pn2                    550             20          50           15        50
pn3                   2000              5        2000            5      1500

Please help

TL

Andrey Morozov · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-12T06:27:07.667

If your solution based on dynamic SQL (ServerA.SprocA) you can't use functions at all in the following call sequence because SQL Server treats functions as deterministic and you can't change SQL Server state in the function call.

if I were on your place I'd made that LnkSrv.DB_History.dbo.SprocA creates denormalized table (tbl_FnB) with following (see below) columns insted of returning scalar value

CustomerId PartId DateFrom DateTo TotalQtyShipped

then SprocB would look like this

Create Procedure SprocB
    @RowId int
As
Begin

  exec LnkSrv.DB_History.dbo.SprocA; -- creates table Tbl_FnB on its side

  Select Partid, Tbl.TotalQtyShipped
       , AskedPrice, AskedQty, AppvPrice, AppvQty
  From Tbl_Header a
  Inner Join Tbl_Detail b On a.RowID = b.RowID
  Inner Join LnkSrv.DB_History.dbo.Tbl_FnB f On f.CustomerId = b.Customerid
  and f.Partid = b.Partid
  and f.DateFrom = b.DateFrom
  and f.DateTo = b.DateTo
  Where a.RowID = @RowId

End   --SprocB

I assumed that fields CustomerId PartId DateFrom DateTo located in the Tbl_Detail table

If I pass a PartId to SprocA, will it create Tbl_FnB with 1 record. If so, my SprocB may have only 1 record with TotalQtyShipped. Will it also have concurrency issue if multiple users run SprocB? — T L, Jul 12 '13 at 18:05
You do not need to pass PartId to SprocA. You need to generate "raw" table with all possible combinations of (CustomerId, PartId, DateFrom, DateTo) and corresponding TotalQtyShipped value for each combination. And join this table at the end. — Andrey Morozov, Jul 12 '13 at 18:20

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 12 '13 at 04:58

There's no real issue with what you're asking for except that you cannot use execute inside a function as you have it;

You can however do this:

create proc [dbo].[GetRowCount] (@TblName NVARCHAR(25) , @Itemid INT,@RowCnt int = 0)
AS BEGIN
  DECLARE @Sqlstring nvarchar(2000)
  set @Sqlstring = 'SELECT @RowCnt = COUNT(*) FROM ['+ @TblName +'] 
    WHERE Itemid = '+ convert(varchar(10),@Itemid)
  EXEC sp_executesql  @Sqlstring,N'@RowCnt int output',@RowCnt output
END

...

declare @RowCnt int
exec [GetRowCount] @TblName='TableName',@Itemid='ItemID',@RowCnt=@RowCnt output
select @RowCnt

you should be able to adapt this for your own situation.

I tried this way and it gave me this error "Only functions and some extended stored procedures can be executed from within a function" — T L, Jul 12 '13 at 17:47

calling a remote sproc from a function

2 Answers2