Thanks again Tim & Bonnie!

>Frank,
>Based on Bonnie's suggestion and solution I tried this original code again after changing the parameter direction to "InputOutput" and it also works fine.
>
>Tim
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I am trying to follow the example in the help file to get a value out of a stored procedure.
>>
>>The stored procedure returns a string in its output parameter:
>>
>>

CREATE PROCEDURE TestNewNumber 
>>
>> @NewNumber varchar(10)
>>OUTPUT
>>AS
>>BEGIN
>>	-- SET NOCOUNT ON added to prevent extra result sets from
>>	-- interfering with SELECT statements.
>>	SET NOCOUNT ON;
>>
>>	SET @NewNumber = '00000'
>>END
>>
>>
>> RETURN @NewNumber

>>
>>The C# code I am using is this:
>>
>>

                // Create the parameter and set the direction
>>                IDbDataParameter param1 = this.CreateParameter("@newNumber", 0);
>>                param1.Direction = ParameterDirection.Output;
>>
>>                IDbCommand cmd;
>>                this.ExecSprocScalar("TestNewNumber", out cmd, param1);
>>
>>                // Retrieve the value from the command object
>>                IDbDataParameter param = (IDbDataParameter)cmd.Parameters["@newNumber"];
>>                string newNumber = (string)param.Value;
>>

>>
>>The problem is that param.Value is returning an integer (0 in this case) rather than the expected string '00000'.
>>
>>What am I doing wrong?