if I have a stored procedure say

  create procure w AS

  ALTER TABLE t ADD x char(1)

  UPDATE t set x =1

Even when it lets me create that stored procedure (if I create it when x exists), when it runs, there is an error on the UPDATE statement because column x doesn't exist.

What's the conventional way to deal with this, it must come up all the time? I can work around it by putting the UPDATE inside EXEC, is there another/better way?

Thanks