Need to find a value in your database but have no clue in which table it resides?
http://stackoverflow.com/users/880904/timlehner
Wrote this one, without any proc and such, nice ad hoc no nonsense backward compatible thingy!
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– Search all columns in all tables in a database for a string.
– Does not search: image, sql_variant or user-defined types.
– Exact search always for money and smallmoney; no wildcards for matching these.
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declare @SearchTerm nvarchar(4000) — Can be max for SQL2005+
declare @ColumnName sysname
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– SET THESE!
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set @SearchTerm = N’foo’ — Term to be searched for, wildcards okay
set @ColumnName = N” — Use to restrict the search to certain columns, wildcards okay, null or empty string for all cols
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– END SET
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set nocount on
declare @TabCols table (
id int not null primary key identity
, table_schema sysname not null
, table_name sysname not null
, column_name sysname not null
, data_type sysname not null
)
insert into @TabCols (table_schema, table_name, column_name, data_type)
select t.TABLE_SCHEMA, c.TABLE_NAME, c.COLUMN_NAME, c.DATA_TYPE
from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES t
join INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS c on t.TABLE_SCHEMA = c.TABLE_SCHEMA
and t.TABLE_NAME = c.TABLE_NAME
where 1 = 1
and t.TABLE_TYPE = ‘base table’
and c.DATA_TYPE not in (‘image’, ‘sql_variant’)
and c.COLUMN_NAME like case when len(@ColumnName) > 0 then @ColumnName else ‘%’ end
order by c.TABLE_NAME, c.ORDINAL_POSITION
declare
@table_schema sysname
, @table_name sysname
, @column_name sysname
, @data_type sysname
, @exists nvarchar(4000) — Can be max for SQL2005+
, @sql nvarchar(4000) — Can be max for SQL2005+
, @where nvarchar(4000) — Can be max for SQL2005+
, @run nvarchar(4000) — Can be max for SQL2005+
while exists (select null from @TabCols) begin
select top 1
@table_schema = table_schema
, @table_name = table_name
, @exists = ‘select null from [' + table_schema + '].[' + table_name + '] where 1 = 0′
, @sql = ‘select ”’ + ‘[' + table_schema + '].[' + table_name + ']‘ + ”’ as TABLE_NAME, * from [' + table_schema + '].[' + table_name + '] where 1 = 0′
, @where = ”
from @TabCols
order by id
while exists (select null from @TabCols where table_schema = @table_schema and table_name = @table_name) begin
select top 1
@column_name = column_name
, @data_type = data_type
from @TabCols
where table_schema = @table_schema
and table_name = @table_name
order by id
— Special case for money
if @data_type in (‘money’, ‘smallmoney’) begin
if isnumeric(@SearchTerm) = 1 begin
set @where = @where + ‘ or [' + @column_name + '] = cast(”’ + @SearchTerm + ”’ as ‘ + @data_type + ‘)’ — could also cast the column as varchar for wildcards
end
end
— Special case for xml
else if @data_type = ‘xml’ begin
set @where = @where + ‘ or cast([' + @column_name + '] as nvarchar(max)) like ”’ + @SearchTerm + ””
end
— Special case for date
else if @data_type in (‘date’, ‘datetime’, ‘datetime2′, ‘datetimeoffset’, ‘smalldatetime’, ‘time’) begin
set @where = @where + ‘ or convert(nvarchar(50), [' + @column_name + '], 121) like ”’ + @SearchTerm + ””
end
— Search all other types
else begin
set @where = @where + ‘ or [' + @column_name + '] like ”’ + @SearchTerm + ””
end
delete from @TabCols where table_schema = @table_schema and table_name = @table_name and column_name = @column_name
end
set @run = ‘if exists(‘ + @exists + @where + ‘) begin ‘ + @sql + @where + ‘ print ”’ + @table_name + ”’ end’
print @run
exec sp_executesql @run
end
set nocount off
