Using an extended event to track a single stored procedure

Question

I'm attempting to track all executions of a stored procedure (Including from inside other stored procedures) and the statements of that procedure - is this possible with extended events? My current extended event is:

CREATE EVENT SESSION [EVENT_NAME] ON SERVER
ADD EVENT sqlserver.rpc_completed(SET collect_data_stream=(1)
ACTION(sqlserver.database_id,sqlserver.database_name,sqlserver.server_principal_name,sqlserver.session_id)
WHERE ([package0].[greater_than_uint64]([sqlserver].[database_id],(4)) AND [package0].[equal_boolean]([sqlserver].[is_system],(0)) AND [sqlserver].[like_i_sql_unicode_string]([sqlserver].[sql_text],N'%MY_STORED_PROCEDURE_NAME%'))),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.sp_statement_completed(
ACTION(sqlserver.database_id,sqlserver.database_name,sqlserver.server_principal_name,sqlserver.session_id)
WHERE ([package0].[greater_than_uint64]([sqlserver].[database_id],(4)) AND [package0].[equal_boolean]([sqlserver].[is_system],(0)) AND [sqlserver].[like_i_sql_unicode_string]([sqlserver].[sql_text],N'%MY_STORED_PROCEDURE_NAME%'))),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.sql_batch_completed(
ACTION(sqlserver.database_id,sqlserver.database_name,sqlserver.server_principal_name,sqlserver.session_id)
WHERE ([package0].[greater_than_uint64]([sqlserver].[database_id],(4)) AND [package0].[equal_boolean]([sqlserver].[is_system],(0)) AND [sqlserver].[like_i_sql_unicode_string]([sqlserver].[sql_text],N'%MY_STORED_PROCEDURE_NAME%')))
ADD TARGET package0.event_file(SET filename=N'TraceData')
WITH (MAX_MEMORY=4096 KB,EVENT_RETENTION_MODE=ALLOW_SINGLE_EVENT_LOSS,MAX_DISPATCH_LATENCY=30 SECONDS,MAX_EVENT_SIZE=0 KB,MEMORY_PARTITION_MODE=NONE,TRACK_CAUSALITY=ON,STARTUP_STATE=OFF)
GO

But this doesn't seem to work unless I execute the procedure manually. Any best practice method to do this?

Answer 1

Your way is very expensive.
You can use module_start event to track this efficiently.

Prepare a demo

CREATE OR ALTER PROCEDURE dbo.TrackedProcedure
    @param int 
AS
BEGIN
    SELECT @param
END 

GO

CREATE OR ALTER PROCEDURE dbo.WrapperProcedure
    @passParam int 
AS
BEGIN
    /* do something */

    SELECT 'WrapperProcedure' AS context

    EXEC dbo.TrackedProcedure 
        @param = @passParam
END
GO

And a draft of the XE session - you should add some data persisting options.

CREATE EVENT SESSION [TrackProcedure] ON SERVER 
ADD EVENT sqlserver.module_start
(
    SET collect_statement=1
    ACTION
    (
        sqlserver.client_app_name,                 /* Additional audit info */
        sqlserver.database_name,                   /* Additional audit info */
        sqlserver.session_server_principal_name,   /* Additional audit info */
        sqlserver.username,                        /* Additional audit info */
        sqlserver.sql_text,
        sqlserver.tsql_stack
    )
    WHERE 
    (
        [object_type]='P ' /* The space behind P is necesssary */
        AND [object_name]=N'TrackedProcedure'
    )
)

Then I execute code like this:

/* Batch 1 */
EXEC dbo.TrackedProcedure 
    @param = 10
GO

/* Batch 2 */
EXEC dbo.WrapperProcedure
    @passParam = 5 -- int
GO

You can see that the sql_text column is the input buffer - capturing the outer scope.
statement column has the exact line.

I blog more about parsing the tsql_stack here. Investigating Errors With Extended Events