RETURN statement

Description

Exits a function or procedure unconditionally, optionally providing a return value. Statements following RETURN are not executed.

Syntax

RETURN [ ( expression ) ]

Examples

Example 1

The following function returns the product of three numbers:

CREATE FUNCTION product ( a numeric,
								b numeric ,
								c numeric)
RETURNS numeric
BEGIN
	RETURN ( a * b * c ) ;
END

Example 2

Calculate the product of three numbers:

SELECT product (2, 3, 4)

product (2,3,4)
24

Example 3

The following procedure uses the RETURN statement to avoid executing a complex query if it is meaningless:

CREATE PROCEDURE customer_products
( in customer_id integer DEFAULT NULL)
RESULT ( id integer, quantity_ordered integer )
BEGIN
	IF customer_id NOT IN (SELECT id FROM customer)
	OR customer_id IS NULL THEN
		RETURN
	ELSE
		SELECT product.id,sum(
			sales_order_items.quantity )
		FROM  product,
				sales_order_items,
				sales_order
		WHERE sales_order.cust_id=customer_id
		AND sales_order.id=sales_order_items.id
		AND sales_order_items.prod_id=product.id
		GROUP BY product.id
	END IF
END

Usage

A RETURN statement causes an immediate exit from the function or procedure. If expression is supplied, the value of expression is returned as the value of the function or procedure.

Within a function, the expression should be of the same data type as the function's RETURNS data type.

RETURN is used in procedures for Transact-SQL-compatibility, and is used to return an integer error code.

Side effects

None.

Standards

SQL/92 Persistent stored module feature.

Sybase Transact-SQL procedures use the return statement to return an integer error code.

Permissions