Question

Is there any possibility to get into system view code, just to realize how view was constructed, which object it uses, and so on…

I don’t need do change them, just to view code.

Answer 1

I use:

select object_definition(object_id('ViewName'))

It gives you the definition on one line, unlike using SP_HelpText which gives you the definition split into chunks – often splitting mid word, which is very unhelpful.

Works on system objects too, and for a variety of types (not just views):

• Check constraint
• Default (constraint or stand-alone)
• SQL stored procedure
• SQL scalar function
• Rule
• Replication filter procedure
• SQL trigger (schema-scoped DML trigger, or DDL trigger at either the database or server scope)
• SQL inline table-valued function
• SQL table-valued function
• View

MSDN Documentation.