How to check if a stored procedure exists before creating it

I realize this has already been marked as answered, but we used to do it like this:

IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE type = 'P' AND OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID('dbo.MyProc'))
   exec('CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[MyProc] AS BEGIN SET NOCOUNT ON; END')
GO

ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[MyProc] 
AS
  ....

Just to avoid dropping the procedure.

You can run procedural code anywhere you are able to run a query.

Just copy everything after AS:

BEGIN
    DECLARE @myvar INT
    SELECT  *
    FROM    mytable
    WHERE   @myvar ...
END

This code does exactly same things a stored proc would do, but is not stored on the database side.

That's much like what is called anonymous procedure in PL/SQL.

Update:

Your question title is a little bit confusing.

If you only need to create a procedure if it not exists, then your code is just fine.

Here's what SSMS outputs in the create script:

IF EXISTS ( SELECT  *
            FROM    sys.objects
            WHERE   object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'myproc')
                    AND type IN ( N'P', N'PC' ) ) 
DROP …
CREATE …

Update:

Example of how to do it when including the schema:

IF EXISTS ( SELECT * 
            FROM   sysobjects 
            WHERE  id = object_id(N'[dbo].[MyProc]') 
                   and OBJECTPROPERTY(id, N'IsProcedure') = 1 )
BEGIN
    DROP PROCEDURE [dbo].[MyProc]
END

In the example above, dbo is the schema.

Update:

In SQL Server 2016+, you can just do

CREATE OR ALTER PROCEDURE dbo.MyProc