Question

Is there some way to stop the Changed database context to ... message when the piece of SQL has a USE database in it ?

Answer 1

You need to set the errorlevel of sqlcmd, which defaults to 0. Note: don’t confuse the errorlevel here with the exit code of sqlcmd that is returned to, say, cmd.exe as the ERRORLEVEL.

To disable this message for all of an sqlcmd session, use the -m commandline option:

sqlcmd -m 1 <other options>

To disable this message for a block of code, use the :setvar batch command:

USE [mydb]
GO

-- Disable message for next USE command
:setvar SQLCMDERRORLEVEL 1
USE [mydb]
GO

-- Reenable
:setvar SQLCMDERRORLEVEL 0

...

To use the :setvar (or other SQLCMD batch commands) in Management Studio, you need to enable the SQLCMD mode for the query window you’re in (menu “Query / SQLCMD Mode”). You’ll see that it is enabled, when lines starting with ‘:’ have a gray background.