How to find out BINN folder path using WMI

A reply to a Tweet on #sqlhelp prompted me to look this up. The question was on finding out the SQL Server BINN folder path. This can be done using WMI in the following manner for SQL Server 2008:


strComputer = "."

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\Microsoft\SqlServer\ComputerManagement10")

Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery( _

"SELECT * FROM SqlService WHERE SQLServiceType = 1 and ServiceName = 'MSSQLSERVER'",,48)

For Each objItem in colItems

Wscript.Echo "-----------------------------------"

Wscript.Echo "SqlService instance"

Wscript.Echo "-----------------------------------"

Wscript.Echo "BinaryPath: " & MID(objItem.BinaryPath,1,InStr(objItem.BinaryPath,"sqlservr.exe")-1)

Next

The SQL Server 2008/R2 WMI namespace has visibility for SQL Server 2005 also. So the above snippet of code can be used to retrieve the BINN path (PathName property contains the fully qualified path to the service binary file that implements the service) for the SQL instance. You can change the SQLServiceType to a different value to get the Binary Path folder for other services as well. The value is the above code is set to 1 for the Database Engine. The ServiceName parameter can be used to filter down the results.

For a named instance, you would need to change the service name to MSSQL$INSTA if your instance is called INSTA.

The same is possible through the much talked about Powershell as well.

Other ways to do this would be to use the xp_instance_regread XSP which is not recommended as it is an undocumented command. An example is show here.

Thanks to @afernandez for pointing out another way through a CLR TVF.

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Generating SELECT INTO scripts for all user tables

Often on data recovery cases, we need to extract all the user table data into a new database. There are multiple options to perform this task:

1. Export/Import Wizard

2. Custom SSIS Task

3. Copy Database Wizard

4. BCP operations

5. SELECT INTO T-SQL commands

I find that the last option is the easiest. I use the following script to get all the T-SQL SELECT…INTO commands for all user tables in the old database:

 select 'select * into <new db>.'+b.name+'.['+a.name+'] from <old db>.'+b.name+'.['+a.name+']' from sys.objects a inner join sys.schemas b on a.schema_id = b.schema_id where a.type = 'U' 

Note: You will have to replace the new database and old database names with the appropriate names. The above script only works for versions of SQL Server 2005 and above.

How to find out if a table exists on the instance

 Once in a while I find that need to find out if a particular table name exists in any of the databases of my SQL Server instance. This is when sp_MSforeachdb comes into play.

EXEC sp_MSforeachdb '
if exists(select * from ?.sys.objects where type = ''U'' and name like ''%log%%'' and is_ms_shipped = 0)
begin
    print ''Database Name: '' + ''?''
    select * from ?.sys.objects where type = ''U'' and name like ''%log%%'' and is_ms_shipped = 0
end'

The above piece of T-SQL code finds out if there exists a user table which has a string “log” in it’s name on all the databases of the instance. You can keep modifying this query by adding more filters in the WHERE clause. Current filters only looks for tables which are not shipped by Microsoft (Eg. user tables created by replication, database tuning advisor, log shipping etc.). Basically any user table created by you. If you want to use this on a SQL Server 2000 instance, then you would need to use sysobjects instead of sys.objects.

Steps to script out the primary key constraints or clustered indexes in a database using DMO

Why do you need this? One of the drawbacks of the “Generate Scripts” option in SQL Server Management Studio is that SSMS scripts out the Primary Key constraints along with the CREATE TABLE script. So, if the table is already created, the primary key will not be created if you use the script that was generated by the SSMS Generate Scripts Wizard

The steps that you need to follow are for generating the primary key constraints or clustered indexes for user defined tables: 

1. You will have to create the Stored Procedure from my previous blog post on the source database. 

2. Then enable the OLE AUTOMATION and XP_CMDSHELL on the server. 

EXEC sp_configure 'Show Advanced',1

reconfigure with override

go

EXEC sp_configure 'Ole Automation',1

reconfigure with override

go

EXEC sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell',1

reconfigure with override

go

 

3. Use the following script to generate the list of Primary Keys for user defined tables in a database: 

Script for generating primary key creation script: 

set nocount on 

print 'DECLARE @return_value int ' 

select ' 

EXEC @return_value = [dbo].[proc_genscript] 

@ServerName = ''SQLSERVER NAME'', /*Replace this with the SQL server name*/ 

@DBName = ''Northwind'', /*Replace this with the database name*/ 

@ObjectName = '''+[name]+''', 

@ObjectType = ''KEY'', 

@TableName = ''' +object_name(parent_object_id)+''', 

@ScriptFile = ''C:\Database\'+[name]+'.sql'' /* Replace this with the directory path where you want the create scripts to be saved */ 

SELECT ''Return Value '' = @return_value'+char(13) 

from sys.objects 

where type = 'PK' 

and parent_object_id in (select id from sys.sysobjects where xtype = 'U')

Script for generating clustered indexes creation script: 

set nocount on 

print 'DECLARE @return_value int ' 

select ' 

EXEC @return_value = [dbo].[proc_genscript] 

@ServerName = ''SQLSERVER NAME'', /*Replace this with the SQL server name*/ 

@DBName = ''Northwind'', /*Replace this with the database name*/ 

@ObjectName = '''+[name]+''', 

@ObjectType = ''INDEX'', @TableName = ''' +object_name(id)+''', 

@ScriptFile = ''C:\Database\'+[name]+'.sql'' /* Replace this with the directory path where you want the create scripts to be saved */ 

SELECT ''Return Value '' = @return_value'+char(13) 

from sys.objects 

where type = 'PK' 

and parent_object_id in (select id from sys.sysobjects where xtype = 'U')

4. Then use the scripts obtained from the above output to generate the Primary Key creation scripts in the folder that you mentioned. In the above example, the *.sql scripts would get created in the C:\Database folder. 

5. Then use the following script to generate the SQLCMD commands for running those *.sql scripts against the source database. 

create table #filenames (file_name varchar(1000))

insert into #filenames

exec xp_cmdshell 'dir <folder path>\*.sql /b'

select 'sqlcmd -S <servername> -d <databasename> -E -i ' +file_name

from #filenames

where file_name like '%sql%'

drop table #filenames

where  

<server name> = SQL Server instance name 

<database name> = Database Name on which you want the objects to be created 

<folder path> = the folder where you want the .sql file to be created. This has to be the same folder path where you saved the .sql files in Step 3. 

6. Now put the commands obtained in Step 5 into a .bat file saved at the same location where the .sql files were created in Step 5. Run the .BAT file from a command prompt window and all the script files will get executed against the context of the database that you provided. 

The above set of steps loops through the sysindexes system catalog and picks up all non-fulltext index and generates the CREATE INDEX scripts for all the user database tables using DMO. 

**** Before running this on a production database, please test out the above solution on a test database

How to find out how many objects of different types are there in a SQL database

I have sometimes found the need on data corruption cases to compare the number of objects exported to the destination database with the source database to find out which objects got exported and which didn’t. You would need to run this script against the source and destination database and compare the output. 

One of the drawbacks of the “Generate Scripts” option in SQL Server Management Studio is that SSMS scripts out the Primary Key constraints along with the CREATE TABLE script. So, if the table is already created, the primary key will not be created if you use the script that was generated by the SSMS Generate Scripts Wizard

Script 

select 

CASE xtype 

WHEN 'C' THEN 'CHECK constraint' 

WHEN 'D' THEN 'Default or DEFAULT constraint ' 

WHEN 'F' THEN 'FOREIGN KEY constraint ' 

WHEN 'L' THEN 'Log ' 

WHEN 'FN' THEN 'Scalar function ' 

WHEN 'IF' THEN 'In-lined table-function ' 

WHEN 'P' THEN 'Stored procedure ' 

WHEN 'PK' THEN 'PRIMARY KEY constraint (type is K) ' 

WHEN 'RF' THEN 'Replication filter stored procedure' 

WHEN 'S' THEN 'System table ' 

WHEN 'TF' THEN 'Table function ' 

WHEN 'TR' THEN 'Trigger ' 

WHEN 'U' THEN 'User table ' 

WHEN 'UQ' THEN 'UNIQUE constraint (type is K) ' 

WHEN 'V' THEN 'View ' 

WHEN 'X' THEN 'Extended stored procedure' 

ELSE 'UNKNOWN' 

END, count(*) as counts 

from sys.sysobjects 

group by CASE xtype 

WHEN 'C' THEN 'CHECK constraint' 

WHEN 'D' THEN 'Default or DEFAULT constraint ' 

WHEN 'F' THEN 'FOREIGN KEY constraint ' 

WHEN 'L' THEN 'Log ' 

WHEN 'FN' THEN 'Scalar function ' 

WHEN 'IF' THEN 'In-lined table-function ' 

WHEN 'P' THEN 'Stored procedure ' 

WHEN 'PK' THEN 'PRIMARY KEY constraint (type is K) ' 

WHEN 'RF' THEN 'Replication filter stored procedure' 

WHEN 'S' THEN 'System table ' 

WHEN 'TF' THEN 'Table function ' 

WHEN 'TR' THEN 'Trigger ' 

WHEN 'U' THEN 'User table ' 

WHEN 'UQ' THEN 'UNIQUE constraint (type is K) ' 

WHEN 'V' THEN 'View ' 

WHEN 'X' THEN 'Extended stored procedure' 

ELSE 'UNKNOWN' 

END