Why does sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription not work without parameters?

Question

I am just starting to play around with all the cool replication tools to Programmatically Monitor Replication

One of the early finds is sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription

When I run it as

 sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription

I get

Msg 20587, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription, Line 77 [Batch Start Line 16]

Invalid '@publication_type' value for stored procedure 'sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription'.

According to MS documents it should be valid with a null default

NULL (default)

If I run it with the Parameter it works fine.

sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription  @publication_type = '0' 

I using it with transactional replication, on a single server (Reporting Copy) I have tried and I get the same results on SQL 2017 & 2016. I am running it against the distribution database

Not sure If I am doing something stupid, if the MS docs are wrong, or what.

Why does sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription not work without parameters?

Answer 1

Checking the code reveals that :

-- validate @publication_type
    --
    if (@publisher_db is NULL or @publication is NULL) 
        and @publication_type is NULL 
    begin
        raiserror(20587, 16, -1, '@publication_type', 'sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription')
        return (1)
    end

This means that if @publication_type is NULL then it will throw an error which is expected.

Even on 2014, it is throwing same error.

Also, you just need to run with

sp_replmonitorhelpsubscription @publication_type = 0 -- for Transactional publication. since the data type is INT.