Question

I have a single windows shell command I’d like to run (via EXEC master..xp_cmdshell) once for each row in a table. I’m using information from various fields to build the command output.

I’m relativity new to writing T-SQL programs (as opposed to individual queries) and can’t quite get my head around the syntax for this, or if it’s even possible/recommended.

I tried creating a single column table variable, and then populating each row with the command I want to run. I’m stifled at how to iterate over this table variable and actually run the commands. Googling around has proven unhelpful.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Answer 1

You could always use a cursor:

USE Northwind  DECLARE @name VARCHAR(32) DECLARE @command VARCHAR(100)  DECLARE shell_cursor CURSOR FOR  SELECT LastName FROM Employees  OPEN shell_cursor  FETCH NEXT FROM shell_cursor INTO @name  WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN     SET @command = 'echo ' + @name     EXEC master.dbo.xp_cmdshell @command     FETCH NEXT FROM shell_cursor INTO @name END  CLOSE shell_cursor DEALLOCATE shell_cursor  GO