Using SQL to Retrieve SQL
At work, someone made a request that required me to look through potentially hundreds of views in dozens of databases on our SQL Server. I certainly didn't want to examine each one at a time. How could I speed up this process with code?
Well, you can find all of your views by querying the sysobjects table, and you can retrieve the SQL behind the views by querying the syscomments table. Something like this works well:
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SELECT RTrim(sysobjects.name) AS ViewName,
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RTrim(syscomments.text) AS ViewSQL
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FROM sysobjects JOIN syscomments
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ON syscomments.id=sysobjects.id
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WHERE sysobjects.xtype='V' AND sysobjects.category=0
This will retrieve the SQL code and names of all the views in the current database. This simple query is the heart of the solution. But I would like to retrieve this information for all of the databases.
Well, it's easy enough to get a list of all the databases. The sysdatabases table in the master database has that list. You can query that table, perhaps filtering out some of the system or sample databases included with SQL Server:
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SELECT name FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases
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WHERE name NOT IN ('tempdb','master','msdb','pubs','model')
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ORDER BY name
Now just combine this information. To accomplish this, we'll build a stored procedure that will create a temporary table, loop through the databases and query each one for its views, insert the view information into the temporary table, and return the temporary table.
Something like this will do the trick:
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CREATE PROC dbo.selectViews AS
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BEGIN
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-- Vars
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DECLARE @dbname sysname
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-- Temp Table
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CREATE TABLE #Results
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(
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DatabaseName varchar(200),
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ViewName varchar(200),
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ViewText nvarchar(4000)
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)
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-- Loop Thru the Databases.
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DECLARE dbnames_cursor CURSOR
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FOR
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SELECT name FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases
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WHERE name NOT IN ('tempdb','master','msdb','pubs','model')
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ORDER BY name
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OPEN dbnames_cursor
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FETCH NEXT FROM dbnames_cursor INTO @dbname
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WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS <> -1)
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BEGIN
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IF (@@FETCH_STATUS <> -2)
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BEGIN
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-- Grab the Views of this Database and Put them in the Temp Table.
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SET @dbname = RTRIM(@dbname)
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INSERT INTO #Results
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EXECUTE
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(
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'SELECT '''+@dbName+''' as DatabaseName, ' +
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'RTrim(' + @dbname + '.dbo.sysobjects.name) as ViewName, ' +
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'RTrim(' + @dbname + '.dbo.syscomments.text) as ViewText ' +
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'FROM ' + @dbName + '.dbo.sysobjects join ' + @dbName + '.dbo.syscomments ' +
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'ON ' + @dbName + '.dbo.syscomments.id=' + @dbName + '.dbo.sysobjects.id ' +
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'WHERE ' + @dbname + '.dbo.sysobjects.xtype=''V'' and ' + @dbname + '.dbo.sysobjects.category=0 '
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)
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END
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FETCH NEXT FROM dbnames_cursor INTO @dbname
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END
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CLOSE dbnames_cursor
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DEALLOCATE dbnames_cursor
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SELECT * FROM #Results order by DatabaseName, ViewName
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DROP TABLE #Results
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END
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--
Now just execute the stored procedure and review its output.
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exec selectViews
This portion of the solution just retrieves the data. After writing this, I developed a really short and simple ColdFusion application that would output the database name, view name, and SQL to a table, and used some simple JavaScript to make it easier to search and filter the views. The client-side methods used to view and work with the data are obviously up to you.