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# VB3 How to Call SQL Stored Procedures from Visual Basic

Article ID: 106492

Article Last Modified on 10/20/2003

APPLIES TO

- Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0 Professional Edition

This article was previously published under Q106492

## SUMMARY

This article describes how to call Microsoft SQL stored procedures from Visual Basic. A stored procedure is a precompiled collection of SQL statements, often including control-of-flow language.

## MORE INFORMATION

The method of calling depends on whether the SQL stored procedure returns records or not:

1. Stored procedures that don't return records (or rows) can be executed from Visual Basic with the ExecuteSQL method as follows:

             i% = MyDb.ExecuteSQL("sp_name")

   This executes the stored procedure sp_name and returns the affected number of rows in i%. The ExecuteSQL method is strictly for action queries such as:

             Delete Authors where name like "fred%"

   The ExecuteSQL method is valid only for SQL statements that do not return records (or rows). An SQL statement that uses "SELECT..." returns records, while an SQL statement that uses "DELETE..." does not. Neither Execute nor ExecuteSQL return a recordset, so using ExecuteSQL on a query that selects records produces an error.
2. Stored procedures that return records (or rows) require a Dynaset or Snapshot to capture the values. Here are two examples:
   Example Using a Data Control on a Visual Basic Form:

             DB_SQLPassThrough = 64
             Data1.Options = DB_SQLPassThrough
             Data1.Recordsource = "sp_name"  ' name of the stored procedure
             Data1.Refresh   ' Refresh the data control

   When you use the SqlPassThrough bit, Visual Basic's Microsoft Access database engine will ignore the syntax used and will pass the command through to the SQL server.
   Alternative Example Using Object Variables:

             Dim Ds as Dynaset
             Set MyDB = OpenDatabase(... ' Open your desired database here.
             Set Ds = MyDB.CreateDynaset("sp_name",Db_SQLPassThrough)
             ' You can also Dim as Snapshot and use MyDb.CreateSnapshot above.

### How to Pass Parameters to a Stored Procedure

To pass parameters, include them after the name of the stored procedure in a string, for example:

       SQLx = "My_StorProc parm1, parm2, parm3"  ' String specifying SQL
                                                 ' command.
       ...
       i = MyDB.ExecuteSQL(SQLx)  ' For stored procedure that
                                  ' doesn't return records.
       ...
       set Ds = MyDB.CreateDynaset(SQLx,64) ' For stored procedure that
                                            ' returns records.

The object variable (Ds) will contain the first set of results from the stored procedure (My_StorProc).

### Another Example

Here's more example code showing both methods:

       Dim db as Database; l as long; Ss as Snapshot
       ' Enter the following two lines as one, single line:
       Set Db = OpenDatabase
          ("",false,false, "ODBC;dsn=yourdsn;uid=youruid;pwd=yourpwd")

       l=ExecuteSQL("YourSP_Name")        ' for SPs that don't return rows
       Set Ss = Db.CreateSnapshot("YourSP_Name", 64) ' for SPs that return rows
       Col1.text = Ss(0) ' Column one
       Col2.text = Ss!ColumnName
       Col3.Text=Ss("ColumnName")

## REFERENCES

More information about calling stored procedures is documented in the following Microsoft SQL manual which covers the Visual Basic Library for SQL Server:

- Microsoft SQL Server Programmer's Reference for Visual Basic

See the functions SqlRpcInit% (pages 200-201), SqlRpcParam%, and SqlRpcSend%. These functions call stored procedures more quickly than do the methods described above.

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Keywords: KB106492