What causes “Incorrect syntax near <stored procedure name>” in EF Code First and SQL 2005?

Question

The examples for System.Data.Entity.Database.SqlQuery method I've found appear to work well with SQL 2008 R2 but do not appear to work with SQL 2005.

This call will work with SQL 2008 R2:

var myEntities = dbContext.Database.SqlQuery<MyEntity>("GetDataFromMySp @EntityId = {0}", entityId);

However, in SQL 2005 this statement will throw a SqlException with an error message of "Incorrect syntax near 'GetDataFromMySp'".

Answer 1

Solution found by @Dan himself (couldn't post due to rep)

The solution I found to this issue was simply to add the keyword "EXEC" to the query:

var myEntities = dbContext.Database.SqlQuery<MyEntity>("EXEC GetDataFromMySp @EntityId = {0}", entityId);

This solution fixed the issue with SQL Server 2005 and still worked with SQL Server 2008 R2.

Answer 2

You only need EXEC if there are any statements before "GetDataFromMySp" in the batch. A stored procedure name by itself should be OK.

I'd run SQL Profiler to see what is being actually being sent by EF.

Things like "prepared statements" issue extra commands as part of the batch in addition to your command text.

See this: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/eu/adonetefx/thread/bae30a3d-7a66-4aff-af99-6426cf0483b5