Question

I did a bulk insert on a large text file that was an update for an existing database that I had. I ran into all kinds of trouble with truncation errors so I just set everything to varchar(max). Now that everything is in SQL Server I’d like to convert the data types from database b, to those of database a. If both databases had the same table and field names, what are some methods of getting this done? Or would it be best to have a pre-existing script you run after import that’s ‘hardcoded’

Answer 1

Try something like this and modify the result and execute it

declare @sql varchar(max)
set @sql=''
select 
    @sql=@sql+'Alter table '+table_name+' alter column '+column_name+' '+cast(data_type as varchar(100))+
    case when data_type like '%char%' then '(' else '' end +cast(coalesce(CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH,'' ) as varchar(100))+
    case when data_type like '%char%' then ')' else '' end+';' 
 from 
    information_schema.columns
where 
    table_name='test'
print @sql