Raymond,

the IF block is used to place a 'unexecuted' SELECT at the beginning of the stored procedure. Placing the conditional test in a WHERE clause without the IF block will return a result... albeit an empty one. The technique described in the article is being used to 'trick' the SSIS OLE DB provider into using the first SELECT it sees, while allowing the stored procedure to ignore the same SELECT when it runs.

Clear as mud?

--SJT--