Difference between Stored Procedures and Functions

[Vineela Devi]

Hi,

Can anyone pls explain me the diff between StoredProcedures and Functions?

Regards,
Vineela

[Pradeep bhatt]

Functions are supposed to be utility kind of code which return some value whereas procedures can have side effects i.e. it changes some value in the database. SP can have IN/OUT parameters which means that more than one return value is possible.

[Prem Kumar]

A Procedure may or may not return a value.By default it wont return any thing.You have to make it return some value by the use of OUT or IN/OUT parameter.

Function will return a value by default.

[Vineela Devi]

Hi,
Thanks for ur replies.Can u please tell me in detail when should we optfor functions and when for stored procedures?

Regards,
Vineela

[Anonymous]

Totally depends on you, wanting sth returned or not.

Say in one case, I had to ignore any exception returned, and in case of any just would inform the end user by getting "-1" as return from a function.

Actually from the point of the database they (proc. and fnctn) are no different.

[Nilesh Molankar]

Hi,
Basically a stored proc can do everything that a function can but the opposite need not be true always.
Like you cannot change the system date etc from a UDF but you can do it from a Stored Proc.

--Nilesh