A reliable way to verify T-SQL stored procedures

Question

We\'re upgrading from SQL Server 2005 to 2008. Almost every database in the 2005 instance is set to 2000 compatibility mode, but we\'re jumping to 2008. Our testing is compl

Answer 1

Nine years after I first posed this question, and I've just discovered an amazing tool built by Microsoft themselves that not only can reliably verify stored procedure compatibility between SQL Server versions, but all other internal aspects as well. It's been renamed a few times, but they currently call it:

Microsoft® Data Migration Assistant v4.2

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53595

Data Migration Assistant (DMA) enables you to upgrade to a modern data platform by detecting compatibility issues that can impact database functionality on your new version of SQL Server. It recommends performance and reliability improvements for your target environment. It allows you to not only move your schema and data, but also uncontained objects from your source server to your target server.

The answers above that use EXEC sys.sp_refreshsqlmodule were a great start, but we ran into one MAJOR problem running it on 2008 R2: any stored procedure or function that was renamed (using sp_rename, and not a DROP/CREATE pattern) REVERTED to its prior definition after running the refresh procedure, because the internal metadata isn't refreshed under the new name. It's a known bug that was fixed in SQL Server 2012, but we had a fun day of recovery afterwards. (One workaround, future readers, is to issue a ROLLBACK if the refresh throws an error.)

Anyway, times have changed, new tools are available -- and good ones at that -- thus the late addition of this answer.