Programmatically retrieve SQL Server stored proced

Question

Any pointers on how I can programmatically get exactly the identical stored procedure source from SQL Server 2005, as when I right-click on that stored procedure in SQL Server Management Studio and select modify?

I'm trying using SMO, but there are some textual differences. The procedure always has CREATE, not ALTER, and there are some differences in the header, such as missing GOs in the version I'm getting programmatically. I can fix these up, but perhaps there is a better way?

Again, I'm in SQL Server 2005, using SMSE. Using SMO via Visual Studio 8 2008.

Update: Gotten some answers that tell the basics of how to retrieve the stored procedure. What I'm looking for is retrieving the text identical (or nearly identical) to what the GUI generates.

Example: for sp_mysp, right-click in Management Studio, select modify. This generates:

    USE [MY_DB]  
    GO  
    /****** Object:  StoredProcedure [dbo].[sp_mysp]    Script Date: 01/21/2009 17:43:18 ******/  
    SET ANSI_NULLS ON  
    GO  
    SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON  
    GO  
    -- =============================================
    -- Author:      
    -- Create date: 
    -- Description: 
    -- =============================================
    ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[sp_mysp]

I'd like to programmatically get the same thing (notice the GOs in the header, and the fact that it's an ALTER PROCEDURE. Ideally, I'd like to get this with minimal programmatic fixing up of the source retrieved.

I'd be happy to only get something that differed in the Script Date details . . .

Answer 1

You will have to hand code it, SQL Profiler reveals the following.

SMSE executes quite a long string of queries when it generates the statement.

The following query (or something along its lines) is used to extract the text:

SELECT
NULL AS [Text],
ISNULL(smsp.definition, ssmsp.definition) AS [Definition]
FROM
sys.all_objects AS sp
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.sql_modules AS smsp ON smsp.object_id = sp.object_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.system_sql_modules AS ssmsp ON ssmsp.object_id = sp.object_id
WHERE
(sp.type = N'P' OR sp.type = N'RF' OR sp.type='PC')and(sp.name=N'#test___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________00003EE1' and SCHEMA_NAME(sp.schema_id)=N'dbo')

It returns the pure CREATE which is then substituted with ALTER in code somewhere.

The SET ANSI NULL stuff and the GO statements and dates are all prepended to this.

Go with sp_helptext, its simpler ...

Answer 2

You said programmatically, right? I hope C# is ok. I know you said that you tried SMO and it didn't quite do what you wanted, so this probably won't be perfect for your request, but it will programmatically read out legit SQL statements that you could run to recreate the stored procedure. If it doesn't have the GO statements that you want, you can probably assume that each of the strings in the StringCollection could have a GO after it. You may not get that comment with the date and time in it, but in my similar sounding project (big-ass deployment tool that has to back up everything individually), this has done rather nicely. If you have a prior base that you wanted to work from, and you still have the original database to run this on, I'd consider tossing the initial effort and restandardizing on this output.

using System.Data.SqlClient;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo;
…
string connectionString = … /* some connection string */;
ServerConnection sc = new ServerConnection(connectionString);
Server s = new Server(connection);
Database db = new Database(s, … /* database name */);
StoredProcedure sp = new StoredProcedure(db, … /* stored procedure name */);
StringCollection statements = sp.Script;