I'm working on a script to convert data from one software package
to another. Greatly simplified, it looks something like

create procedure import_widget as
begin

insert into our_widget (foo, bar)
select baz, quux from their_db.dbo.their_widget

end
go

The problem is that the name of the source database varies from
one system to another, so I want to pass the database name as a
parameter. I think I could do the following, but is there a
better way to go about it?

create procedure import_widget (@db_name sysname) as
begin

exec 'create view their_widget as select * from '
+ @db_name + '.dbo.their_widget'

insert into our_widget (foo, bar)
select baz, quux from their_widget

drop view their_widget

end
go

Ed Murphy (emurphy42 (AT) socal (DOT) rr.com) writes:
On SQL 2005 you could use synonyms:

CREATE SYNONYM mytable AS thatdatabase.dbo.hertable

When you move to a new database you only need to update the synonyms.


--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel (AT) sommarskog (DOT) se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx

Erland Sommarskog wrote:

Alas, this is SQL 2000 (or at least I expect it will be in a
significant number of cases).

Ed Murphy (emurphy42 (AT) socal (DOT) rr.com) writes:
Then the best may be to have a stored procedure in the other database
to retreive that data. You still need to construct the procedure name
dynamically, but since EXEC accepts a variable for the procedure name,
you don't have to use dynamic SQL.

That is you can say:

SELECT @sp_name = @dbname + '..that_sp'
EXEC @sp_name


--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel (AT) sommarskog (DOT) se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx