Question

I need to delete some text files when a certain database is dropped from SQL server (because they contain associated data that becomes out of date). I had a thought that I could use some sort of trigger to run a query to do that but I can’t figure out where to put that or how to do it.

I’m using SQL server 2005 but likely to upgrade as time goes on.

Any ideas?

thanks,

Jamie

Thanks to Martin Smith, here is the code I used:

CREATE TRIGGER ddl_trig_database  
ON ALL SERVER   
FOR DROP_DATABASE  
AS  
DECLARE @database_count int  
select @database_count=count(*) from sys.databases where name='myDbName'

IF @database_count = 0  
BEGIN  
    -- Our database has been dropped, delete text files  
    DECLARE @Result int  
    DECLARE @FSO_Token int  
    EXEC @Result = sp_OACreate 'Scripting.FileSystemObject', @FSO_Token OUTPUT  
    EXEC @Result = sp_OAMethod @FSO_Token, 'DeleteFile', NULL, 'D:\afile.txt'  
    EXEC @Result = sp_OADestroy @FSO_Token  
END   

I also had to run this to enable the OLE Automation delete:

exec sp_configure
go
exec sp_configure 'Ole Automation Procedures', 1
-- Configuration option 'Ole Automation Procedures' changed from 0 to 1.
go
reconfigure
go

Answer 1

You need a Server scoped DDL trigger for this I think. I’m not really sure off the top of my head how you would delete text files in TSQL though. Looks like there’s some ideas here. Or maybe you could invoke an SSIS package from the trigger that does the clean up.

CREATE TRIGGER ddl_trig_database 
ON ALL SERVER 
FOR DROP_DATABASE 
AS 

IF EVENTDATA().value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/TSQLCommand/CommandText)[1]',
                                                   'nvarchar(max)') = 'myDbName'
BEGIN
/*Some code here*/    
END