Altering user-defined table types in SQL Server

Question

How can I alter a user-defined table type in SQL Server ?

Answer 1

This is kind of a hack, but does seem to work. Below are the steps and an example of modifying a table type. One note is the sp_refreshsqlmodule will fail if the change you made to the table type is a breaking change to that object, typically a procedure.

1. Use sp_rename to rename the table type, I typically just add z to the beginning of the name.
2. Create a new table type with the original name and any modification you need to make to the table type.
3. Step through each dependency and run sp_refreshsqlmodule on it.
4. Drop the renamed table type.

---

EXEC sys.sp_rename 'dbo.MyTableType', 'zMyTableType';
GO
CREATE TYPE dbo.MyTableType AS TABLE(
    Id INT NOT NULL,
    Name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL
);
GO
DECLARE @Name NVARCHAR(776);

DECLARE REF_CURSOR CURSOR FOR
SELECT referencing_schema_name + '.' + referencing_entity_name
FROM sys.dm_sql_referencing_entities('dbo.MyTableType', 'TYPE');

OPEN REF_CURSOR;

FETCH NEXT FROM REF_CURSOR INTO @Name;
WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0)
BEGIN
    EXEC sys.sp_refreshsqlmodule @name = @Name;
    FETCH NEXT FROM REF_CURSOR INTO @Name;
END;

CLOSE REF_CURSOR;
DEALLOCATE REF_CURSOR;
GO
DROP TYPE dbo.zMyTableType;
GO

WARNING:

This can be destructive to your database, so you'll want to test this on a development environment first.