How to Suppress the SELECT Output of a Stored Procedure called from another Stored Procedure in SQL Server?

Question

I\'m not talking about doing a \"SET NOCOUNT OFF\". But I have a stored procedure which I use to insert some data into some tables. This procedure creates a xml response s

Answer 1

I think I found a solution.

So what i can do now in my SQL script is something like this (sql-psuedo code):

create table #tmp(xmlReply varchar(2048))
while not_done
  begin
    select top 1 record from updateTable where processed = 0
    insert into #tmp exec insertSomeData @param=record
  end
drop table #tmp

Now if there was a even more efficient way to do this. Does SQL Server have something similar to /dev/null? A null table or something?

Answer 2

Man, this is seriously a case of a computer doing what you told it to do instead of what you wanted it to do.

If you don't want it to return results, then don't ask it to return results. Refactor that stored procedure into two:

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[insertSomeData] (@myParam int) AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @reply varchar(2048)

--... Do a bunch of inserts/updates...

EXEC SelectOutput
END
GO

CREATE PROCEDURE SelectOutput AS
BEGIN
SET @reply = '<xml><big /><outputs /></xml>'
SELECT @reply
END

Answer 3

Answering the question, "How do I suppress stored procedure output?" really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. So I want to contribute what I encountered:

I needed to supress the stored procedure (USP) output because I just wanted the row count (@@ROWCOUNT) from the output. What I did, and this may not work for everyone, is since my query was already going to be dynamic sql I added a parameter called @silentExecution to the USP in question. This is a bit parameter which I defaulted to zero (0).

Next if @silentExecution was set to one (1) I would insert the table contents into a temporary table, which is what would supress the output and then execute @@ROWCOUNT with no problem.

USP Example:

CREATE PROCEDURE usp_SilentExecutionProc
    @silentExecution bit = 0
AS
BEGIN
    SET NOCOUNT ON;

    DECLARE @strSQL VARCHAR(MAX);

    SET @strSQL = '';

    SET @strSQL = 'SELECT TOP 10 * ';

    IF @silentExecution = 1
         SET @strSQL = @strSQL + 'INTO #tmpDevNull ';

    SET @strSQL = @strSQL +     
    'FROM dbo.SomeTable ';

    EXEC(@strSQL);
END
GO

Then you can execute the whole thing like so:

EXEC dbo.usp_SilentExecutionProc @silentExecution = 1;
SELECT @@ROWCOUNT;

The purpose behind doing it like this is if you need the USP to be able to return a result set in other uses or cases, but still utilize it for just the rows.

Just wanted to share my solution.

Answer 4

I don't know if SQL Server has an option to suppress output (I don't think it does), but the SQL Query Analyzer has an option (under results tab) to "Discard Results".

Are you running this through isql?

Answer 5

You said your server is crashing. What is crashing the application that consumes the output of this SQL or SQL Server itself (assuming SQL Server).

If you are using .Net Framework application to call the stored procedure then take a look at SQLCommand.ExecuteNonQuery. This just executes stored procedure with no results returned. If problem is at SQL Server level then you are going to have to do something different (i.e. change the stored procedure).

Answer 6

From which client are you calling the stored procedure? Say it was from C#, and you're calling it like:

var com = myConnection.CreateCommand();
com.CommandText = "exec insertSomeData 1";
var read = com.ExecuteReader();

This will not yet retrieve the result from the server; you have to call Read() for that:

read.Read();
var myBigString = read[0].ToString();

So if you don't call Read, the XML won't leave the Sql Server. You can even call the procedure with ExecuteNonQuery:

var com = myConnection.CreateCommand();
com.CommandText = "exec insertSomeData 1";
com.ExecuteNonQuery();

Here the client won't even ask for the result of the select.