How to return the output of stored procedure into a variable in sql server

Question

I want to execute a stored procedure in SQL Server and assign the output to a variable (it returns a single value) ?

Answer 1

You can use the return statement inside a stored procedure to return an integer status code (and only of integer type). By convention a return value of zero is used for success.

If no return is explicitly set, then the stored procedure returns zero.

   CREATE PROCEDURE GetImmediateManager
      @employeeID INT,
      @managerID INT OUTPUT
   AS
   BEGIN
     SELECT @managerID = ManagerID 
     FROM HumanResources.Employee 
     WHERE EmployeeID = @employeeID

     if @@rowcount = 0 -- manager not found?
       return 1;
   END

And you call it this way:

DECLARE @return_status int;
DECLARE @managerID int;

EXEC @return_status = GetImmediateManager 2, @managerID output;
if @return_status = 1
  print N'Immediate manager not found!';
else 
  print N'ManagerID is ' + @managerID;
go

You should use the return value for status codes only. To return data, you should use output parameters.

If you want to return a dataset, then use an output parameter of type cursor.

more on RETURN statement