Many a times we come across a scenario where we need to execute some code based on whether a Stored Procedure exists or not. There are different ways of identifying the Stored Procedure existence in Sql Server, in this article will list out the commonly used approaches. Let me know which approach you use and reason for the same.

To demonstrate these different approaches let us create a sample database with a Table and a Stored Procedure by the below script:

CREATE DATABASE SqlHintsDemoDB
GO
USE SqlHintsDemoDB
GO
CREATE TABLE dbo.Customers (CustId INT, Name NVARCHAR(50))
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.GetCustomers(@CustId AS INT)
AS
BEGIN
	SELECT * FROM  dbo.Customers WHERE CustId = @CustId
END
GO

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Approach 1: Using sys.procedures catalog view

We can write a query like below to check if a GetCustomers Stored Procedure exists in the current database in any schema.

USE SqlHintsDemoDB
GO
IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM sys.procedures 
          WHERE Name = 'GetCustomers')
BEGIN
	PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT:

The above query checks the existence of the GetCustomers Stored Procedure across all the schemas in the current database. Instead of this if you want to check the existence of the Stored Procedure in a specified Schema then we can re-write the above query as below:

USE SqlHintsDemoDB
GO
IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM sys.procedures 
          WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.GetCustomers'))
BEGIN
	PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT:

If you want to check the existence of a stored procedure in a database other than the current contextual database, then we can use the script like below:

USE MASTER
GO
IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM SqlHintsDemoDB.sys.procedures
 WHERE object_id=OBJECT_ID(N'SqlHintsDemoDB.dbo.GetCustomers'))
BEGIN
	PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT:

Note: sys.procedures catalog view contains a row for each object of the below type:

Type	Description
P	SQL Stored Procedure
PC	Assembly (CLR) stored-procedure
RF	Replication-filter-procedure
X	Extended stored procedure

If you are looking for only Sql Stored Procedure, then in sys.procedures catalog views query you can add the filter AND condition as: Type = N’P’.

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Approach 2: Using sys.objects catalog view

sys.procedures catalog view inherits the rows from the sys.objects catalog view, sys.objects catalog view is referred to as base view where as sys.procedures is referred to as derived view. sys.procedures will return the rows only for the stored procedures whereas sys.objects view apart from returning the rows for stored procedures, it returns rows for the objects like: tables, views etc.

We can write a script like below to check the existence of a stored procedure in the current contextual database:

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects
            WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.GetCustomers')
                    AND type IN ( N'P', N'PC',N'X',N'RF')) 
BEGIN
	PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT:

If you want check the existence of a stored procedure in a database other than the contextual database then we can re-write the above query by using three part naming convention as shown below:

USE master
GO
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM SqlHintsDemoDB.sys.objects
 WHERE object_id=OBJECT_ID(N'SqlHintsDemoDB.dbo.GetCustomers')
      AND type IN ( N'P', N'PC',N'X',N'RF')) 
BEGIN
	PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT:

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Approach 3: Using sys.sql_modules Catalog View

We can use the sys.sql_modules catalog view to check the existence of the Stored Procedure as shown below:

USE SqlHintsDemoDB
GO
IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM sys.sql_modules
   WHERE object_id =  OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.GetCustomers') 
   AND OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id, N'IsProcedure') = 1) 
BEGIN
	PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT

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Approach 4: Using OBJECT_ID() function

We can use OBJECT_ID() function like below to check if a GetCustomers Stored procedure exists in the current database.

USE SqlHintsDemoDB
GO
IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.GetCustomers', N'P') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
	PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT:

Specifying the Database Name and Schema Name parts for the Stored Procedure Name is optional. But specifying Database Name and Schema Name provides an option to check the existence of the stored procedure in the specified database and within a specified schema, instead of checking in the current database across all the schemas. The below query shows that, even though the current database is MASTER database, we can check the existence of the GetCustomers stored procedure in the dbo schema in the SqlHintsDemoDB database.

USE MASTER
GO
IF OBJECT_ID(N'SqlHintsDemoDB.dbo.GetCustomers', N'P')
     IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
	PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT:

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Approach 5: Using INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES View

We can use the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES view to check the existence of the stored procedure as shown below:

USE SqlHintsDemoDB
GO
IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES 
  WHERE ROUTINE_NAME = 'GetCustomers' 
        AND ROUTINE_TYPE = 'PROCEDURE') 
BEGIN
    PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT

Approach 6: Avoid Using sys.sysobjects System table

We should avoid using sys.sysobjects System Table directly, direct access to it will be deprecated in some future versions of the Sql Server. As per Microsoft BOL link, Microsoft is suggesting to use the catalog views sys.objects/sys.procedures/sys.sql_modules instead of sys.sysobjects system table directly to check the existence of the stored procedure.

USE SqlHintsDemoDB
GO
IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM sys.sysobjects  
     WHERE id = OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.GetCustomers') AND xtype=N'P' )
BEGIN
    PRINT 'Stored Procedure Exists'
END

RESULT:

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