Question

We’re using Visual Studio Database Professional and it makes heavy use of SQLCMD variables to differentiate between environments while deploying.

I know there’s several directives available for setting context (like :connect for server name). Is there a way within the script itself to force SQLCMD mode for execution? Part of our deployment process is to have DBA’s examine and execute the scripts and it would be a nice safety net (so I don’t have to remind them to set their execution mode to SQLCMD).

Answer 1

Not a solution, but as a work-around, you could embed your script in some warning. This post inspired me to this code:

SET NOEXEC OFF; -- previous execution may have toggled it
:setvar IsSqlCmdEnabled "True"
GO
IF ('$(IsSqlCmdEnabled)' = '$' + '(IsSqlCmdEnabled)')
BEGIN
  PRINT('Use SqlCmd-mode!!');
  SET NOEXEC ON;
  -- RAISERROR ('This script must be run in SQLCMD mode.', 20, 1) WITH LOG
END
ELSE
BEGIN
  PRINT('Using SqlCmd-mode')
  -- insert the code you really want to execute:
  -- ...
END
SET NOEXEC OFF; -- do not disable next execution in this session