What is the correct way to check for the existence of a table in SQL Server?

Question

I am having problems with an older database creation script. I am wondering if it has anything to do with the way it is determining existence of certain objects.

For tables the line is

IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[tablename]' AND type in (N'U'))
BEGIN
Create table...
END

This seems wrong, after looking at sys.objects, I don't think it would ever have it there. Is this a bug? If so what would be a better way to write this?

Answer 1

I usually use

IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.TableName') IS NULL 

  CREATE Table dbo.TableName 
  ....... 


GO

OR you could do something like....

IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.TableName') IS NOT NULL 
  DROP TABLE dbo.TableName 
GO

  CREATE Table dbo.TableName 
  .......     
GO

The OBJECT_ID() function also takes a second (optional) parameters, it is the Object type, for user defined tables you would use U , something like....

IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.TableName' , 'U') IS NULL 

  CREATE Table dbo.TableName 
  ....... 


GO