Question

I have sql server database with numerous tables, some no longer used so I want to remove them. All database interactivity is via stored procedure to these tables.

Is there a database sql script that I can use that will list all tables not referenced in any of the stored procedures in the database?

Answer 1

You can’t do this if you use any dynamic T-SQL. Dynamic T-SQL won’t show up in any investigation of object dependencies.

Instead, you can use the DMV sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats to find what objects haven’t been referenced by any queries. Here’s a query I did on SQLServerPedia for that:

http://sqlserverpedia.com/wiki/Find_Indexes_Not_In_Use

The query is designed for performance tuning indexes, so you’ll need to tweak a few lines. Here’s the modified query:

SELECT 
o.name
, indexname=i.name
, i.index_id   
, reads=user_seeks + user_scans + user_lookups   
, writes =  user_updates   
, rows = (SELECT SUM(p.rows) FROM sys.partitions p WHERE p.index_id = s.index_id AND s.object_id = p.object_id)
, CASE
    WHEN s.user_updates < 1 THEN 100
    ELSE 1.00 * (s.user_seeks + s.user_scans + s.user_lookups) / s.user_updates
  END AS reads_per_write
, 'DROP INDEX ' + QUOTENAME(i.name) 
+ ' ON ' + QUOTENAME(c.name) + '.' + QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(s.object_id)) as 'drop statement'
FROM sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats s  
INNER JOIN sys.indexes i ON i.index_id = s.index_id AND s.object_id = i.object_id   
INNER JOIN sys.objects o on s.object_id = o.object_id
INNER JOIN sys.schemas c on o.schema_id = c.schema_id
WHERE OBJECTPROPERTY(s.object_id,'IsUserTable') = 1
AND s.database_id = DB_ID()   
ORDER BY reads

Keep in mind that this catches all indexes, and you’ll need to sift through – some of your objects may be heaps, some may have clustered indexes, etc. I’ll leave this as a wiki so someone more ambitious than me can edit it to build a deduped list. 😀