What Are the Differences Between Functions and Stored Procedures?

Functions and stored procedures are two common objects in database management systems. They have similarities and differences in implementing specific functions. Understanding their characteristics and application scenarios is important for properly designing the database structure and improving database performance.

Table 1 Differences between functions and stored procedures

Function

Stored procedures

Both can be used to implement specific functions. Both functions and stored procedures can encapsulate a series of SQL statements to complete certain specific operations.

Both can receive input parameters and perform corresponding operations based on the parameters.

The identifier of a function is FUNCTION.

The identifier of the stored procedure is PROCEDURE.

A function must return a specific value of the specified numeric type.

A stored procedure can have no return value, one return value, or multiple return values. You can use output parameters to return results or directly use the SELECT statement in a stored procedure to return result sets.

Functions are used to return single values, for example, a number calculation result, a string processing result, or a table.

Stored procedures are used for DML operations, for example, inserting, updating, and deleting data in batches.