Question

I’m trying to run a simple query to find the queries with the highest average CPU time. The code is literally copy-pasted from here:

SELECT TOP 5 total_worker_time/execution_count AS [Avg CPU Time],
    SUBSTRING(st.text, (qs.statement_start_offset/2)+1, 
        ((CASE qs.statement_end_offset
          WHEN -1 THEN DATALENGTH(st.text)
         ELSE qs.statement_end_offset
         END - qs.statement_start_offset)/2) + 1) AS statement_text
FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS qs
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(qs.sql_handle) AS st
ORDER BY total_worker_time/execution_count DESC;

Problem is, SQL Server is complaining about a syntax error in line 8 at the parameter to sys.dm_exec_sql_text: qs.sql_handle which unhelpfully reads

Incorrect syntax near '.'.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what’s wrong with the query. Any ideas?

Answer 1

It means that you are either

1. not running SQL Server 2005; or more likely
2. not running in Compatibility mode 90 or above

You can change it to 90 or above using, but it could very well break a lot of applications.

alter database MyDataBaseName set compatibility_level = 90

The easiest solution on SQL Server 2005 and above is simply to run it from “master” or “tempdb”, e.g.

USE tempdb;
SELECT TOP 5 total_worker_time/execution_count AS [Avg CPU Time],
    SUBSTRING(st.text, (qs.statement_start_offset/2)+1, 
        ((CASE qs.statement_end_offset
          WHEN -1 THEN DATALENGTH(st.text)
         ELSE qs.statement_end_offset
         END - qs.statement_start_offset)/2) + 1) AS statement_text
FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS qs
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(qs.sql_handle) AS st
ORDER BY total_worker_time/execution_count DESC;