Question

This may be the wrong place to ask this, but I’m trying to take data from a SQL Datasource, place it into Excel, and automatically generate a Data Dictionary from the aforementioned SQL Datasource. Has anyone done this or know how to do this?

[EDIT]

What I need is all of the table names, and all of the columns in each table (each table will be it’s own excel tab), and for each column, I need the data type and whether or not it is nullable

Answer 1

Assuming you mean a listing of columns in a database with the column meta data and this is a one time need and doesn’t need much in the way of automation.

I would execute the following in SSMS

SELECT Table_name
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'


DECLARE @tableName sysname
DECLARE table_cursor CURSOR FAST_FORWARD  FOR 
SELECT Table_name
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'

OPEN table_cursor

FETCH NEXT FROM table_cursor 
INTO @tableName

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
    SELECT TABLE_NAME,
            COLUMN_NAME,
            Data_type + COALESCE('(' + Cast(Character_Maximum_length as varchar) + ')' ,'') DataType, 
            IS_NULLABLE

    FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS 
    WHERE
    TABLE_NAME = @tableName



    FETCH NEXT FROM table_cursor 
    INTO @tableName
END
CLOSE table_cursor
DEALLOCATE table_cursor

This will output multiple results set the first one is a table name then everyone after would be the column data you mentioned.

You could get rid of the cursor and just have two outputs if you prefer but I find it easier to press Ctrl+A Ctrl+Con each grid