Passing An IN (a, B, C) List To A Sproc As A String -- Best Method?

I want to do something like this in a stored proc:

------

Create Procedure dbo.GetPatients
@PatientIdList varchar(200) -- comma separated list of PatientIDs
As

Select *
From Patients
Where PatientId In (@PatientIdList)

------

I know the above won't work, but of course what I want is if
@PatientIdList = '1,2,3' then I want Patient records with PatientIds
1, 2, and 3 returned.

It looks like the only way to do this is to build the SQL statement as
a string within the stored procedure ... which pretty much defeats the
usefulness of using precompiled sprocs as I understand it (better off
building a dynamic query against a View in that case).


Thoughts?

Joel Thornton ~ <groups@joelpt.eml.cc>