Question

Is there a way to write a query like:

select * from <some number of tables>

…where the number of tables is unknown? I would like to avoid using dynamic SQL. I would like to select all rows from all the tables that (the tables) have a specific prefix:

select * from t1
select * from t2
select * from t3
...

I don’t know how many t(n) might there be (might be 1, might be 20, etc.) The t table column structures are not the same. Some of them have 2 columns, some of them 3 or 4.

It would not be hard using dynamic SQL, but I wanted to know if there is a way to do this using something like sys.tables.

UPDATE

Basic database design explained

N companies will register/log in to my application

Each company will set up ONE table with x columns

(x depends on the type of business the company is, can be different, for example think of two companies: one is a Carpenter and the other is a Newspaper)

Each company will fill his own table using an API built by me

What I do with the data:

I have a “processor”, that will be SQL or C# or whatever.

If there is at least one row for one company, I will generate a record in a COMMON table.

So the final results will be all in one table.

Anybody from any of those N companies will log in and will see the COMMON table filtered for his own company.

Answer 1

to list ALL tables you could try :

EXEC sp_msforeachtable 'SELECT * FROM  ?'

you can programmability include/exclude table by doing something like:

EXEC sp_msforeachtable 'IF LEFT(''?'',9)=''[dbo].[xy'' BEGIN SELECT * FROM  ? END ELSE PRINT LEFT(''?'',9)'