Insert data into a Text File

As you propably know that MS introduced in SQL Server 2005 a new command utility called SQLCMD. In this article I would like to show the difference between SQLCMD and "old fashioned" OSQL in terms of formating the text file's output.

If you run these two statements and look at the files , you'll see that SQL Server inserts three dotted lines in myoutput2.txt, not so good for reading. Opposite, in myoutput1.txt you see very good reading format.

EXEC master..xp_cmdshell 'SQLCMD -S URID\SQLSERVERDEV2005 -E -Q "SELECT TOP 10 * FROM pubs.dbo.authors" -b -o c:\myoutput1.txt', no_output
EXEC master..xp_cmdshell 'OSQL -S URID\SQLSERVERDEV2005 -E -Q "SELECT TOP 10 * FROM pubs.dbo.authors" -b -o c:\myoutput2.txt', no_output

Despite that SQL Server 2005 supports OSQL utility, I strongly recommend you using SQLCMD.

Disable all Foreign Keys

Recently I was told to clear up all user tables in the client's database SQL Server 2000 SP3.There are lots of contsrtaints and for this purpose we would like to disable them in order to delete all data. Try it on Northwind database before using on production. If you want to enable constraints ,simple replace NOCHECK with CHECK.

DECLARE @TableName nvarchar(257),
@ForeignKeyConstraintName sysname,
@SQLStatement nvarchar(4000)

DECLARE TableList CURSOR
LOCAL FAST_FORWARD READ_ONLY FOR
SELECT
QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) +
N'.' +
QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME) AS TableName,
QUOTENAME(CONSTRAINT_NAME) AS ForeignKeyConstraintName
FROM
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS
WHERE
CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'FOREIGN KEY' AND
OBJECTPROPERTY
(
OBJECT_ID
(
QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) +
N'.' +
QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME)
),
'IsMSShipped') = 0

OPEN TableList
WHILE 1 = 1
BEGIN
FETCH NEXT FROM TableList INTO
@TableName,
@ForeignKeyConstraintName
IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -1 BREAK
SET @SQLStatement =
N'ALTER TABLE ' +
@TableName +
N' NOCHECK CONSTRAINT ' +
@ForeignKeyConstraintName
RAISERROR (@SQLStatement, 0, 1) WITH NOWAIT
EXEC sp_executesql @SQLStatement
END
CLOSE TableList
DEALLOCATE TableList
GO