Joe,

>The posting refered to was returning a value via an output parameter and as such setting the size of the output parameter fixed the problem.
>I am just trying to get the result of the scalar stored procedure that is returned only as a return value of the procedure. Is this not the way to get this done? Any other thoughts?

Sorry...I missed the fact that you were calling a function rather a stored procedure. Here's a link that shows how to call UDFs from ADO.NET:

http://www.ftponline.com/vsm/2003_09_14th/online/hottips/rehak/

Regards,