The “right” way to do stored procedure parameter validation

Question

I have a stored procedure that does some parameter validation and should fail and stop execution if the parameter is not valid.

My first approach for error checking look

Answer 1

I prefer to return out as soon an possible, and see not point to having everything return out from the same point at the end of the procedure. I picked up this habit doing assembly, years ago. Also, I always return a value:

RETURN 10

The application will display a fatal error on positive numbers, and will display the user warning message on negative values.

We always pass back an OUTPUT parameter with the text of the error message.

example:

IF ~error~
BEGIN
    --if it is possible to be within a transaction, so any error logging is not ROLLBACK later
    IF XACT_STATE()!=0
    BEGIN
        ROLLBACK
    END

    SET @OutputErrMsg='your message here!!'
    INSERT INTO ErrorLog (....) VALUES (.... @OutputErrMsg)
    RETURN 10

END