Sysdepends And Compiling Stored Procedures In The Correct Order

Hello:

We are presently testing various upgrade scripts to our current application which is scheduled to shortly be upgraded to mssql 7.0. We are testing under mssql 7.0,sp 2.

As it works now, I receive some existing scripts that have been modified and some stored proceures that are new. For the existing stored procedures, I usually take my best guess as to what the order of creation will be, test it in my script for recompile(actually all are dropped first and then the guesswork on the creates). This is usually trial and error as I run the script, see any sysdepends errors such as:

"CREATE PROCEDURE: ep_invoiceheaderformat_spv0101
Cannot add rows to sysdepends for the current stored procedure because it depends on the missing object 'ep_assumepay"

And then move the order of the create procedures around in the script and try again until I get a clean run in a test database I use just to syntactically test the scripts.

I looked at the sysdepends table for the database and pretty much decided that the object numbers and stuff was pretty much incomprehensible to me.


Alternatively I could compile each one separately but I would have the same problem subsequently trying to generate a script of the al of the create procedures... in the right order which would not

My question is:

1) Is there a way I can read and understand what the data means in sysdepends?

2) Figure out a way to utilize the data there to create or generate the create stored procedure text in the correct clean compile order?

3) Any other suggestions?

Any information which can be proveded will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.


David Spaisman