EF4 - The selected stored procedure returns no columns

Question

I have query in a stored procedure that calls some linked servers with some dynamic SQL. I understand that EF doesn't like that, so I specifically listed all the columns that would be returned. Yet, it still doesn't like that. What am I doing wrong here? I just want EF to be able to detect the columns returned from the stored procedure so I can create the classes I need.

Please see the following code that makes up the last lines of my stored procedure:

SELECT
    #TempMain.ID,
    #TempMain.Class_Data,
    #TempMain.Web_Store_Class1,
    #TempMain.Web_Store_Class2,
    #TempMain.Web_Store_Status,
    #TempMain.Cur_1pc_Cat51_Price,
    #TempMain.Cur_1pc_Cat52_Price,
    #TempMain.Cur_1pc_Cat61_Price,
    #TempMain.Cur_1pc_Cat62_Price,
    #TempMain.Cur_1pc_Cat63_Price,
    #TempMain.Flat_Length,
    #TempMain.Flat_Width,
    #TempMain.Item_Height,
    #TempMain.Item_Weight,
    #TempMain.Um,
    #TempMain.Lead_Time_Code,
    #TempMain.Wp_Image_Nme,
    #TempMain.Wp_Mod_Dte,
    #TempMain.Catalog_Price_Chg_Dt,
    #TempMain.Description,
    #TempMain.Supersede_Ctl,
    #TempMain.Supersede_Pn,
    TempDesc.Cust_Desc,
    TempMfgr.Mfgr_Item_Nbr,
    TempMfgr.Mfgr_Name,
    TempMfgr.Vendor_ID
FROM
    #TempMain
        LEFT JOIN TempDesc ON #TempMain.ID = TempDesc.ID
        LEFT JOIN TempMfgr ON #TempMain.ID = TempMfgr.ID

Answer 1

EF doesn't support importing stored procedures which build result set from:

• Dynamic queries
• Temporary tables

The reason is that to import the procedure EF must execute it. Such operation can be dangerous because it can trigger some changes in the database. Because of that EF uses special SQL command before it executes the stored procedure:

SET FMTONLY ON

By executing this command stored procedure will return only "metadata" about columns in its result set and it will not execute its logic. But because the logic wasn't executed there is no temporary table (or built dynamic query) so metadata contains nothing.

You have two choices (except the one which requires re-writing your stored procedure to not use these features):

• Define the returned complex type manually (I guess it should work)
• Use a hack and just for adding the stored procedure put at its beginning SET FMTONLY OFF. This will allow rest of your SP's code to execute in normal way. Just make sure that your SP doesn't modify any data because these modifications will be executed during import! After successful import remove that hack.