I agree about the BEGIN .. END. Same convention in C# where I like to use the curly brackets if only for one line.

>Hi Dimitry
>
>Like Sergey I like to put a BEGIN and END after my if statement even if its only one line. In fact I usually enter the BEGIN and END before I put any statements in the BEGIN END block.
> I've got some pretty big stored procedures and some to the IF statement blocks are pretty big and have nested IF block in them.
>
>>Thank you for the explanation of BEGIN/END and correction of my use of RTRIM().
>>
>>>1. You don't need BEGIN/END for one statement but you can wrap even one statement in BEGIN/END. I often do for consistency or if I expect to use more than one statement in the future
>>>2. Yes, you have to use BEGIN/END for more than one statement otherwise only first one of the block after IF will be executed.
>>>
>>>BTW, LEN() function retuns length of it's parameter w/o trailing spaces so RTRIM() in len(rtrim(@FoundValue)) is redundant. IOW len(rtrim(@FoundValue)) returns the same result as len(@FoundValue)
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I want to be sure I understand the use of BEGIN / END with IF statement in a stored procedure.
>>>>
>>>>Here is how I understand it:
>>>>
>>>>1. If there is only one statement after the IF condition, I don't need to have BEGIN / END. That is, this one statement after IF will be executed.
>>>>
>>>>2. But if there is more than one statement after IF, I must have these statements enclosed with BEGIN / END? Here is an example:
>>>>
>>>>

>>>>if @SomeVar = 1
>>>>   BEGIN
>>>>   select @FoundValue = column_name from table1 where 'some condition'
>>>>   if len(rtrim(@FoundValue)) > 0
>>>>      set @Var2 = @FoundValue
>>>>   END
>>>>

>>>>
>>>>That is, I must have the BEGIN and END above to make sure all lines after the first IF are executed only if @SomeVar =1 ?