GO causes error when used in EXEC: “Incorrect syntax near 'GO'.”

Question

I\'ve created this stored procedure which dynamically creates the same trigger for all my tables:

USE [MyDatabase]
GO

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIE         


        

Answer 1

1) EXEC[UTE] can execute only T-SQL statements.

GO is not T-SQL statement.

GO is not a Transact-SQL statement; it is a command recognized by the sqlcmd and osql utilities and SQL Server Management Studio Code editor. SQL Server utilities interpret GO as a signal that they should send the current batch of Transact-SQL statements to an instance of SQL Server.

2) You could replace

     SET @SQL = '
--Drop Trigger
BEGIN TRY
     DROP TRIGGER [dbo].[TR_' + @TableName + '_Audit]
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
END CATCH
GO

--Create Trigger
CREATE TRIGGER [dbo].[TR_' + @TableName + '_Audit]

with

DECLARE @TriggerName SYSNAME;
SET @TriggerName = 'TR_' + @TableName + '_Audit';

IF EXISTS (
    SELECT  *
    FROM    sys.triggers 
    WHERE   parent_id = OBJECT_ID(@TableName)
    AND     name = @TriggerName
)
BEGIN
     SET @SQL = N'DROP TRIGGER [dbo].' + QUOTENAME(@TriggerName);
     EXEC(@SQL);
END

    SET @SQL = '
--Create Trigger
CREATE TRIGGER [dbo].[TR_' + @TableName + '_Audit]

or (better)

with

DECLARE @TriggerName SYSNAME;
SET @TriggerName = 'TR_' + @TableName + '_Audit';

IF NOT EXISTS (
    SELECT  *
    FROM    sys.triggers 
    WHERE   parent_id = OBJECT_ID(@TableName)
    AND     name = @TriggerName
)
BEGIN
     SET @SQL = N'CREATE TRIGGER [dbo].' + QUOTENAME(@TriggerName) + 'ON ' + @TableName + ' AFTER INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE AS BEGIN SELECT NULL END';
     EXEC(@SQL);
END

    SET @SQL = '
--Alter Trigger
ALTER TRIGGER [dbo].[TR_' + @TableName + '_Audit]

Note: The object's name should be NVARCHAR(128) or SYSNAME.