SQL Server System Stored Procedures

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Article Body:
System Stored Procedures System stored procedures are packaged with SQL Server. Many procedures are used to administer SQL Server, but some are utilities that can be profitablly used by developers. They are global, and can be called from any database application without their fully qualified name. (They are all owned by dbo.) . They are all stored in the Master database, and have the prefix sp_. This is a reason why it is considered unwise to name local stored procedures with the sp_ prefix. They can be read by viewing their properties in the Query Analyzer.

The system-stored procedures are grouped into these categories. 

Category 
 Description 
 
Active Directory Procedures 
 Used to register instances of SQL Server and SQL Server databases in Microsoft Windows® 2000 Active Directory™. 
 
Catalog Procedures 
 Implements ODBC data dictionary functions and isolates ODBC applications from changes to underlying system tables. 
 
Cursor Procedures 
 Implements cursor variable functionality. 
 
Database Maintenance Plan Procedures 
 Used to set up core maintenance tasks necessary to ensure database performance. 
 
Distributed Queries Procedures 
 Used to implement and manage Distributed Queries. 
 
Full-Text Search Procedures 
 Used to implement and query full-text indexes. 
 
Log Shipping Procedures 
 Used to configure and manage log shipping. 
 
OLE Automation Procedures 
 Allows standard OLE automation objects to be used within a standard Transact-SQL batch. 
 
Replication Procedures 
 Used to manage replication. 
 
Security Procedures 
 Used to manage security. 
 
SQL Mail Procedures 
 Used to perform e-mail operations from within SQL Server. 
 
SQL Profiler Procedures 
 Used by SQL Profiler to monitor performance and activity. 
 
SQL Server Agent Procedures 
 Used by SQL Server Agent to manage scheduled and event-driven activities. 
 
System Procedures 
 Used for general maintenance of SQL Server. 
 
Web Assistant Procedures 
 Used by the Web Assistant. 
 
XML Procedures 
 Used for Extensible Markup Language (XML) text management. 
 
General Extended Procedures 
 Provides an interface from SQL Server to external programs for various maintenance activities. 
 

You can create your own system-stored procedures by following the guidelines outlined above. But, even though it is possible to modify an existing system sproc, it is better to name it with another name than to destroy the system version.

Dynamic Queries are created and executed within a stored procedure, and are built typically by passing in text parameters and creating a text SQL string. Then the string is executed using the form EXEC (@createdstring)[@functname=][@dllname=]