What is the preferred way to identify whether a stored procedure exists

Question

I've historically used the following as part of a stored procedure deployment script:

IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects O 
   WHERE O.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[SPROC_NAME]') 
   AND OBJECTPROPERTY(O.[object_id],N'IsProcedure') = 1)

    EXEC('CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[SPROC_NAME] AS')
GO

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[SPROC_NAME]
AS
BEGIN ...

I did not know about the overload to OBJECT_ID which takes a type for object ID lookup, for example:

OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[SPROC_NAME]', N'P')

It seems like using that overload would make the OBJECTPROPERTY lookup unnecessary.

I'd like to know if there is any downside to using just the OBJECT_ID overload and dropping the OBJECTPROPERTY lookup.

Answer 1

I prefer this form, and have stopped using the OBJECT* metadata functions as much as possible, since they can block even at loose isolation levels:

IF NOT EXISTS 
(
   SELECT 1 FROM sys.procedures AS p
     INNER JOIN sys.schemas AS s
     ON p.[schema_id] = s.[schema_id]
     WHERE p.name = N'Procedure_Name' AND s.name = N'dbo'
)
BEGIN
  EXEC sp_executesql N'CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.Procedure_Name AS';
END

Answer 2

My prefered way is :

  if object_id('x') is not null
  begin
    drop procedure x
  end
  go
  create procedure x ...
  ...