Category: SQL Server

In the last post, I posted a SQL script which could be used to find a column in the database. This post has a SQL script which can be used to locate triggers in all databases.

Change the highlighted section to the name of the trigger you’re looking for and run the script.

This is not something I am going to do manually, so I wrote a script which would find all tables containing the specified column (change the highlighted section):

/*
Created by Ian Grieve of azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant (https://www.azurecurve.co.uk)
This code is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 UK).
*/
DECLARE @command nvarchar(max)
DECLARE @Trigger VARCHAR(50) = 'utr_'

SELECT @command = 'IF EXISTS ( SELECT 1 FROM sys.databases WHERE name = ''?'')   
					BEGIN
						USE [?];
						DECLARE @stmt nvarchar(max) DECLARE @n char(1) SET @n = char(10)
						SELECT DB_NAME() AS ''DB_NAME'',t.name,t.is_disabled FROM sys.triggers AS t 
						INNER JOIN sys.objects AS o ON o.object_id = t.object_id WHERE o.name LIKE ''' + @Trigger + '%''
					END'

EXEC sp_MSforeachdb @command

During a recent upgrade we encountered an error which resulted in me poking around in the database attempting to locate column called PAYRCORD.

This is not something I am going to do manually, so I wrote a script which would find all tables containing the specified column (change the highlighted section):

/*
Created by Ian Grieve of azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant (https://www.azurecurve.co.uk)
This code is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 UK).
*/
DECLARE @ColumnToFind VARCHAR(20) = 'PAYRCORD'
SELECT
	SCHEMA_NAME(t.schema_id) AS 'Schema'
	,t.name AS 'Table'
FROM
	sys.tables AS t
INNER JOIN
	sys.columns AS c
		ON
			t.OBJECT_ID = c.OBJECT_ID
WHERE
	c.name = @ColumnToFind
ORDER BY
	'Schema'
	,'Table'

Quite a long time ago I started using a particular naming convention when creating SQL objects such as tables, triggers, or views. The plan was so that they were easy to find in the database.

With some clients who have objects with this naming convention looking to do upgrades I’ve taken the next step and created some SQL queries to select all of these objects (which was always the next step).

The naming convention I adopted is in the following format:

• type
• organisation who created
• client
• name (which will be omitted if the object is a generic one which might be given to multiple clients)

So, a custom table, created by azurecurve for Fabrikam, Inc. to store a Sales Order/Assembly cross reference would be called ut_AZRCRV_FAB_SalesOrderAssemblyXref.

The type prefix varies by object type, but always starts with a u for user. The types I use are:

• ut for tables
• uv for views
• uf for functions
• usp for stored procedures
• utr for triggers

The following view (following my naming convention above lacks a client as it is generic) selects all custom objects in the database created by AZRCRV:

CREATE VIEW uv_AZRCRV_GetCustomObjects AS
/*
Created by Ian Grieve of azurecurve|Ramblings of a Dynamics GP Consultant (https://www.azurecurve.co.uk)
This code is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Int).
*/
SELECT o.name,'' AS 'table name', o.type_desc, o.modify_date FROM sys.objects AS o WHERE o.name LIKE 'u__AZRCRV_%'
UNION ALL
SELECT i.name, o.name, o.type_desc, o.modify_date FROM sys.indexes AS i INNER JOIN sys.objects AS o ON o.object_id = i.object_id WHERE I.name LIKE 'u%_AZRCRV_%'
UNION ALL
SELECT t.name, o.name, t.type_desc, o.modify_date FROM sys.triggers AS t INNER JOIN sys.objects AS o ON o.object_id = t.object_id WHERE o.name LIKE 'u%_AZRCRV_%'

The view can either by run manually in SQL Server Management Studio or plugged into either SmartList Designer or SmartList Builder. Once all custom items have been located, they can be extracted and preserved as scripts to be redeployed after the upgrade if necessary.