Debug output

SQL Server has a PRINT command that can be used to send a message back to the client app (e.g. SSMS) but it’s not ideal. Firstly it’s buffered, the message will only be sent back to the client once the current output buffer is full. Also it doesn’t easily support printing arguments into the message.

An alternative is to use the RAISERROR function with the “WITH NOWAIT” option. This will send the message back to the client immediately and it also supports printf style argument printing. This works just like the FORMATMESSAGE function.

RAISERROR('This is the message', 0, 1) WITH NOWAIT

RAISERROR('Checkpoint, @@ERROR=%d', 0, 1, @@ERROR) WITH NOWAIT

RAISERROR('Checkpoint, stage=%s', 0, 1, @stage) WITH NOWAIT

And by the way, why is it RaisError and not RaiseError? I don’t know if this is true but I saw this quote once …

“Ever asked yourself why there is only one “e” in RaisError? The command comes from the old Sybase days where two consecutive characters were cut back to one to save space.”