Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 Unleashed, Second Edition

Deferred Name Resolution

In SQL Server 2000, the object names that a stored procedure references do not have to exist at the time the procedure is created. Versions of SQL Server prior to 7.0 would return an error message and fail to create if a procedure referenced an object, other than another stored procedure, that didn't exist at the time the stored procedure was created. Stored procedures in SQL Server 7.0 and 2000 check for the existence of database objects at the time the stored procedure is executed and return an error message at runtime if the referenced object doesn't exist. The only exception is when a stored procedure references another stored procedure that doesn't exist. In that case, a warning message will be issued, but the stored ...