How to retrieve a part of a stored procedure's header? - sql-server

Question

I have a C# WinForms application that manages stored procedures used by different services. What the users see is something like that:
exec stored_procedure_name param1, param2, param3
And since param1 doesn't mean anything to them (they can't see the stored procedure), I would like to present to them small descriptions of the parameters which are normally saved in the header of the stored procedure.
A typical stored procedure would like:
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[stored_procedure_name]') AND type in (N'P', N'PC'))
DROP PROCEDURE [dbo].[stored_procedure_name]
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
/*************************************************************************************
[Procedure Info]
Author = myName
Description = this stored procedure returns results.
**************************************************************************************
[Parameters Info]
#param1 = this is parameter one
#param2 = this is parameter two
#param3 = this is parameter three
**************************************************************************************
[Changes]
2015-06-17 The stored procedure is optimized.
*/
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[stored_procedure_name]
#param1 int,
#param2 nvarchar(20),
#param3 nvarchar(10)
AS
BEGIN
-- SP code here
END
GO
From the above, I want to get the descriptions in the Parameters info. I know that I can use the following SQL to retrieve the stored procedure as text/table:
CREATE TABLE #tmpHeader
(
TEXT NVARCHAR(1000)
)
INSERT INTO #tmpHeader
EXEC sp_helptext 'stored_procedure_name';
SELECT * FROM #tmpHeader
DROP TABLE #tmpHeader
Any ideas or suggestions how to proceed from here in order to get the content of the parameters info?
I am also open to any other suggestions.

Answer 1

Consider using extended properties to store meta-data. This is much cleaner than parsing the module text.
EDIT:
The example below returns all parameters plus descriptions for those parameters with extended properties. In your code, you can pass the schema and object names as parameters instead of the local variables used here for illustration.
EXEC sp_addextendedproperty #name = N'Description',
#value = 'this is parameter one', #level0type = N'Schema',
#level0name = 'dbo', #level1type = N'Procedure',
#level1name = 'stored_procedure_name', #level2type = N'Parameter',
#level2name = '#param1';
GO
EXEC sp_addextendedproperty #name = N'Description',
#value = 'this is parameter two', #level0type = N'Schema',
#level0name = 'dbo', #level1type = N'Procedure',
#level1name = 'stored_procedure_name', #level2type = N'Parameter',
#level2name = '#param2';
GO
EXEC sp_addextendedproperty #name = N'Description',
#value = 'this is parameter three', #level0type = N'Schema',
#level0name = 'dbo', #level1type = N'Procedure',
#level1name = 'stored_procedure_name', #level2type = N'Parameter',
#level2name = '#param3';
GO
DECLARE
#SchemaName sysname = 'dbo'
, #ObjectName sysname = 'stored_procedure_name';
SELECT properties.objtype
, properties.objname
, parms.name
, properties.value
FROM sys.parameters AS parms
LEFT JOIN fn_listextendedproperty('Description', 'Schema', #SchemaName, 'Procedure',
#ObjectName, 'Parameter', DEFAULT) AS properties ON
properties.objname COLLATE DATABASE_DEFAULT = parms.name
WHERE
parms.object_id = OBJECT_ID(QUOTENAME(#SchemaName) + '.' + QUOTENAME(#ObjectName));
GO

Answer 2

This should make the think your looking for.
SELECT SUBSTRING(definition,CHARINDEX(N'[Parameters Info]',definition),CHARINDEX(N'[',definition,CHARINDEX(N'[Parameters Info]',definition)+1)-CHARINDEX(N'[Parameters Info]',definition))
FROM sys.sql_modules
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID('YOUR PROCEDURE!!!')
It searches for Parameters Info and goes any further until if finds another header block (beginning with [). You can also specify that it should search for *.