How to get existence of a temporary table in sql server 2008

Question

I wrote this query:

SELECT * INTO #nima FROM Region r

Every time I execute this queries:

SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#nima')) 
--or
SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID('#nima')) 

I get NULL, but when I execute above select I get error that #nima alreadty exist

Answer 1

Try just using the OBJECT_ID function to determine if the temp table exists:

SELECT object_id('tempdb..#nima')

Or if you wish to retrieve the object name, you will need to specify the database id using the DB_ID function for the temp database:

SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#nima'), DB_ID('tempdb'))

Answer 2

This gives the internal id of #nima as expected in tempdb

SELECT OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#nima')) 

OBJECT_NAME takes a local database ID. There will be no object (except by rare chance) with that ID locally because the ID comes from tempdb

Demo (untested!)

USE tempdb
SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#nima'))  --#nima + system generated stuff
USE MyDB
SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#nima'))  --null
-- Now we add DBID for tempdb
SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#nima'), 2) -- #nima + system generated stuff