You probably already know that string comparison is dependent on the collation. but sometimes this dependency is slightly strange. I have installed an SQL Server with LATIN1_GENERAL_CI_AS as default collation (like is also the default setting during installation). Some weeks ago I came across a specific behavior in combination of this collation and the german language.

German is a stunning language! really. You may know that we have a tendency to Germans have some special vowels (the “Umlaut”: ä, ö, and ü) and also that extra ß which is often (but not always) simply interchangeable with “ss”. look at this query that uses the default collation for comparison:
select case
 when 'ss' collate latin1_general_ci_as
     = 'ß' collate latin1_general_ci_as
      then 'Yes'
 else 'No'
end [ss=ß?]

Considering that LATIN1_GENERAL_CI_AS is the default collation, the query above is identical to the following query:
select case
 when 'ss' = 'ß' then 'Yes'
 else 'No'
end [ss=ß?]

In both cases the result is Yes, so “ß” is considered as to be identical to “ss” when using the LATIN1_GENERAL_CI_AS collation. Now it's time to look at this query:

select case
 when 'ä' = 'ae' then 'Yes'
 else 'No'
end [ä=ae?]

This time the answer is no which is somewhat surprising, since one could consider the overall behavior inconsistent. In German, “ä” and “ae” (and also “ö” and “oe” in addition as “ü” and “ue”) are just as interchangeable as “ß” and “ss”. When this happened to me, I started browsing books online. There’s a hint, where you're advised setting the default collation to LATIN1_GENERAL_BIN for new installations. I didn’t know this so far, but ok: let’s retry our experiment:

select case
 when 'ss' collate latin1_general_bin
     = 'ß' collate latin1_general_bin
      then 'Yes'
 else 'No'
end [ss=ß?]

Now the answer is no. but considering the fact that most newer installations use LATIN1_GENERAL_CI_AS, simply because that’s the default during installation, I can’t just change the collation to LATIN1_GENERAL_BIN, since this will certainly produce other problems with queries spanning multiple databases with totally different collations. Not taking into account that changing the collation for an existing server and all of its databases/columns is a cumbersome and also very risky task on its own.

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In this tutorial, I will show you how to Return Value in SQL Server  from EXEC Function. If you specify the OUTPUT keyword for a parameter in the procedure definition, the procedure can return the current value of the parameter to the calling program when the procedure exits. The following Stored Procedure is used which returns an Integer value 1 if the StudentId exists and 0 if the StudentId does not exists.

CREATE PROCEDURE CheckStudentId 
@StudentId INT 
AS 
BEGIN 
SET NOCOUNT ON; 
DECLARE @Exists INT 
IF EXISTS(SELECT StudentId FROM Students WHERE StudentId = @StudentId) 
BEGIN 
SET @Exists = 1 
END 
ELSE 
BEGIN 
SET @Exists = 0 
END 
RETURN @Exists 
END 

Returned value from EXEC function:
The returned integer value from the Stored Procedure, you need to make use of an Integer variable and use along with the EXEC command while executing the Stored Procedure.

    DECLARE @ReturnValue INT 
    EXEC @ReturnValue = < Store Procedure Name > < Parameters > Select @ReturnValue 
    Example: DECLARE @ReturnValue INT 
    EXEC @ReturnValue = CheckStudentId 34 
    SELECT @ReturnValue 

If There are valid StudentId then Output will be : 1

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Today, let me show you how to empty and delete all SQL Database. Now write the following code snippet for Clear Blank SQL Database:

    DECLARE @name VARCHAR(128) 

    DECLARE @SQL VARCHAR(254) 

    SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 [name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [type] = 'P' AND category = 0 ORDER BY [name]) 

    WHILE @name is not null 

    BEGIN 

        SELECT @SQL = 'DROP PROCEDURE [dbo].[' + RTRIM(@name) +']' 

        EXEC (@SQL) 

        PRINT 'Dropped Procedure: ' + @name 

        SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 [name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [type] = 'P' AND category = 0 AND [name] > @name ORDER BY [name]) 

    END 

    GO 

    /* Drop all views */ 

    DECLARE @name VARCHAR(128) 

    DECLARE @SQL VARCHAR(254)

    SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 [name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [type] = 'V' AND category = 0 ORDER BY [name]) 

    WHILE @name IS NOT NULL 

    BEGIN 

        SELECT @SQL = 'DROP VIEW [dbo].[' + RTRIM(@name) +']' 

        EXEC (@SQL) 

        PRINT 'Dropped View: ' + @name 

        SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 [name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [type] = 'V' AND category = 0 AND [name] > @name ORDER BY [name]) 

    END 

    GO 

    /* Drop all functions */ 

    DECLARE @name VARCHAR(128)  

    DECLARE @SQL VARCHAR(254)     

    SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 [name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [type] IN (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT') AND category = 0 ORDER BY [name])      

    WHILE @name IS NOT NULL 

    BEGIN 

        SELECT @SQL = 'DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[' + RTRIM(@name) +']' 

        EXEC (@SQL) 

        PRINT 'Dropped Function: ' + @name 

        SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 [name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [type] IN (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF', N'FS', N'FT') AND category = 0 AND [name] > @name ORDER BY [name]) 

    END 

    GO      

    /* Drop all Foreign Key constraints */ 

    DECLARE @name VARCHAR(128) 

    DECLARE @constraint VARCHAR(254) 

    DECLARE @SQL VARCHAR(254)      

    SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE constraint_catalog=DB_NAME() AND CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'FOREIGN KEY' ORDER BY TABLE_NAME)      

    WHILE @name is not null 

    BEGIN 

        SELECT @constraint = (SELECT TOP 1 CONSTRAINT_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE constraint_catalog=DB_NAME() AND CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'FOREIGN KEY' AND TABLE_NAME = @name ORDER BY CONSTRAINT_NAME) 

        WHILE @constraint IS NOT NULL 

        BEGIN 

            SELECT @SQL = 'ALTER TABLE [dbo].[' + RTRIM(@name) +'] DROP CONSTRAINT [' + RTRIM(@constraint) +']' 

            EXEC (@SQL) 

            PRINT 'Dropped FK Constraint: ' + @constraint + ' on ' + @name 

            SELECT @constraint = (SELECT TOP 1 CONSTRAINT_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE constraint_catalog=DB_NAME() AND CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'FOREIGN KEY' AND CONSTRAINT_NAME <> @constraint AND TABLE_NAME = @name ORDER BY CONSTRAINT_NAME) 

        END 

    SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE constraint_catalog=DB_NAME() AND CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'FOREIGN KEY' ORDER BY TABLE_NAME) 

    END 

    GO      

    /* Drop all Primary Key constraints */ 

    DECLARE @name VARCHAR(128) 

    DECLARE @constraint VARCHAR(254) 

    DECLARE @SQL VARCHAR(254)      

    SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE constraint_catalog=DB_NAME() AND CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'PRIMARY KEY' ORDER BY TABLE_NAME)      

    WHILE @name IS NOT NULL 

    BEGIN 

        SELECT @constraint = (SELECT TOP 1 CONSTRAINT_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE constraint_catalog=DB_NAME() AND CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'PRIMARY KEY' AND TABLE_NAME = @name ORDER BY CONSTRAINT_NAME) 

        WHILE @constraint is not null 

        BEGIN 

            SELECT @SQL = 'ALTER TABLE [dbo].[' + RTRIM(@name) +'] DROP CONSTRAINT [' + RTRIM(@constraint)+']' 

            EXEC (@SQL) 

            PRINT 'Dropped PK Constraint: ' + @constraint + ' on ' + @name 

            SELECT @constraint = (SELECT TOP 1 CONSTRAINT_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE constraint_catalog=DB_NAME() AND CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'PRIMARY KEY' AND CONSTRAINT_NAME <> @constraint AND TABLE_NAME = @name ORDER BY CONSTRAINT_NAME) 

        END 

    SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE constraint_catalog=DB_NAME() AND CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'PRIMARY KEY' ORDER BY TABLE_NAME) 

    END 

    GO      

    /* Drop all tables */ 

    DECLARE @name VARCHAR(128) 

    DECLARE @SQL VARCHAR(254)      

    SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 [name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [type] = 'U' AND category = 0 ORDER BY [name])      

    WHILE @name IS NOT NULL 

    BEGIN 

        SELECT @SQL = 'DROP TABLE [dbo].[' + RTRIM(@name) +']' 

        EXEC (@SQL) 

        PRINT 'Dropped Table: ' + @name 

        SELECT @name = (SELECT TOP 1 [name] FROM sysobjects WHERE [type] = 'U' AND category = 0 AND [name] > @name ORDER BY [name]) 

    END 

    GO 

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