Question

I would like to search an entire MS SQL 2000 database for one value. This would be to aid development only. Keep that in mind when considering this question.

This will get all the table names and the column of the data type I’m looking for:

SELECT Columns.COLUMN_NAME, tables.TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Columns as Columns  JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES as tables  On Columns.TABLE_NAME = tables.TABLE_NAME WHERE Columns.DATA_TYPE = 'INT'   

I was thinking something like this:

-- Vars DECLARE @COUNTER INT DECLARE @TOTAL INT DECLARE @TABLE CHAR(128) DECLARE @COLUMN CHAR(128) DECLARE @COLUMNTYPE CHAR(128) DECLARE @COLUMNVALUE INT  -- What we are looking for SET @COLUMNTYPE = 'INT' SET @COLUMNVALUE = 3 SET @COUNTER = 0  -- Find out how many possible columns exist SELECT @TOTAL = COUNT(*)   FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Columns as Columns  JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES as tables  On Columns.TABLE_NAME = tables.TABLE_NAME WHERE Columns.DATA_TYPE = @COLUMNTYPE PRINT CAST(@TOTAL AS CHAR) + 'possible columns' WHILE @COUNTER < @TOTAL BEGIN     SET @COUNTER = @COUNTER +1     -- ADD MAGIC HERE END 

Any ideas?

UPDATE I recently found this tool that works quite well.

Answer 1

Since it is dev only (and probably doesn’t have to be very elegant), how about using TSQL to generate a pile of TSQL that you then copy back into the query window and execute?

SELECT 'SELECT * FROM [' + tables.TABLE_NAME + '] WHERE ['        + Columns.Column_Name + '] = ' + CONVERT(varchar(50),@COLUMNVALUE) FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Columns as Columns INNER JOIN INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES as tables      On Columns.TABLE_NAME = tables.TABLE_NAME WHERE Columns.DATA_TYPE = @COLUMNTYPE 

It won’t be pretty, but it should work… an alternative might be to insert something like the above into a table-variable, then loop over the table-variable using EXEC (@Sql). But for dev purposes it probably isn’t worth it…