Finding columns used in a calculation in a SQL Server view - sql-server

I'm trying to put a data dictionary together for a client using SQL Server MDS. In order to avoid tracking the specific location in the data warehouse/marts/source systems of the fields being defined, I'm hoping to use the system views as much as possible.
This works fine for tracking the fields themselves. However, the users' reports work off cubes built on views in the data marts, and I'm having trouble tracking the source of calculated columns.
Taking this view as an example:
CREATE VIEW [dbo].[vw_testing_colltable]
AS
SELECT colid, coldesc, firstadd + secondadd AS totaladd
FROM dbo.testing_coltable
Where in the system views can I determine that firstadd and secondadd are part of the view and they are used to create totaladd?
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEW_COLUMN_USAGE lists firstadd and secondadd but not totaladd.
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS lists totaladd but not firstadd and secondadd.
sys.columns combines the two.

Related

Identify if a column is Virtual in Snowflake without SHOW COLUMNS

Currently we're identifying if a column is virtual in Snowflake by running a SHOW COLUMN query and checking the KIND field for VIRTUAL_COLUMN. Unfortunately, there's a 10k limit on entries returned from SHOW queries in Snowflake and we'd like to be able to run this query at the schema level on schemas ~25k tables.
According to this post there's no way to identify virtual columns in the information_schema.columns view and we'd like to avoid having to run a SHOW COLUMNS query at the table level or having to run a desc table on every table.
Is there some other way we can identify virtual columns at scale?
Unfortunately, not aware of any native capability. I would consider writing a script using the get_ddl() function and run it against all objects in a schema.

Get audit history records of any entity record as per CRM view

I want to display all audit history data as per MS CRM format.
I have imported all records from AuditBase table from CRM to another Database server table.
I want this table records using SQL query in Dynamics CRM format (as per above image).
I have done so far
select
AB.CreatedOn as [Created On],SUB.FullName [Changed By],
Value as Event,ab.AttributeMask [Changed Field],
AB.changeData [Old Value],'' [New Value] from Auditbase AB
inner join StringMap SM on SM.AttributeValue=AB.Action and SM.AttributeName='action'
inner join SystemUserBase SUB on SUB.SystemUserId=AB.UserId
--inner join MetadataSchema.Attribute ar on ab.AttributeMask = ar.ColumnNumber
--INNER JOIN MetadataSchema.Entity en ON ar.EntityId = en.EntityId and en.ObjectTypeCode=AB.ObjectTypeCode
--inner join Contact C on C.ContactId=AB.ObjectId
where objectid='00000000-0000-0000-000-000000000000'
Order by AB.CreatedOn desc
My problem is AttributeMask is a comma separated value that i need to compare with MetadataSchema.Attribute table's columnnumber field. And how to get New value from that entity.
I have already checked this link : Sql query to get data from audit history for opportunity entity, but its not giving me the [New Value].
NOTE : I can not use "RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryResponse", because i need to show these data in external webpage from sql table(Not CRM database).
Well, basically Dynamics CRM does not create this Audit View (the way you see it in CRM) using SQL query, so if you succeed in doing it, Microsoft will probably buy it from you as it would be much faster than the way it's currently handled :)
But really - the way it works currently, SQL is used only for obtaining all relevant Audit view records (without any matching with attributes metadata or whatever) and then, all the parsing and matching with metadata is done in .NET application. The logic is quite complex and there are so many different cases to handle, that I believe that recreating this in SQL would require not just some simple "select" query, but in fact some really complex procedure (and still that might be not enough, because not everything in CRM is kept in database, some things are simply compiled into the libraries of application) and weeks or maybe even months for one person to accomplish (of course that's my opinion, maybe some T-SQL guru will prove me wrong).
So, I would do it differently - use RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryRequest (which was already mentioned in some answers) to get all the Audit Details (already parsed and ready to use) using some kind of .NET application (probably running periodically, or maybe triggered by a plugin in CRM etc.) and put them in some Database in user-friendly format. You can then consume this database with whatever external application you want.
Also I don't understand your comment:
I can not use "RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryResponse", because i need to
show these data in external webpage from sql table(Not CRM database)
What kind of application cannot call external service (you can create a custom service, don't have to use CRM service) to get some data, but can access external database? You should not read from the db directly, better approach would be to prepare a web service returning the audit you want (using CRM SDK under the hood) and calling this service by external application. Unless of course your external app is only capable of reading databases, not running any custom web services...
It is not possible to reconstruct a complete audit history from the AuditBase tables alone. For the current values you still need the tables that are being audited.
The queries you would need to construct are complex and writing them may be avoided in case the RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryRequest is a suitable option as well.
(See also How to get audit record details using FetchXML on SO.)
NOTE
This answer was submitted before the original question was extended stating that the RetrieveRecordChangeHistoryRequest cannot be used.
As I said in comments, Audit table will have old value & new value, but not current value. Current value will be pushed as new value when next update happens.
In your OP query, ab.AttributeMask will return comma "," separated values and AB.changeData will return tilde "~" separated values. Read more
I assume you are fine with "~" separated values as Old Value column, want to show current values of fields in New Value column. This is not going to work when multiple fields are enabled for audit. You have to split the Attribute mask field value into CRM fields from AttributeView using ColumnNumber & get the required result.
I would recommend the below reference blog to start with, once you get the expected result, you can pull the current field value using extra query either in SQL or using C# in front end. But you should concatenate again with "~" for values to maintain the format.
https://marcuscrast.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/dynamics-crm-2011-audit-report-in-ssrs/
Update:
From the above blog, you can tweak the SP query with your fields, then convert the last select statement to 'select into' to create a new table for your storage.
Modify the Stored procedure to fetch the delta based on last run. Configure the sql job & schedule to run every day or so, to populate the table.
Then select & display the data as the way you want. I did the same in PowerBI under 3 days.
Pros/Cons: Obviously this requirement is for reporting purpose. Globally reporting requirements will be mirroring database by replication or other means and won't be interrupting Prod users & Async server by injecting plugins or any On demand Adhoc service calls. Moreover you have access to database & not CRM online. Better not to reinvent the wheel & take forward the available solution. This is my humble opinion & based on a Microsoft internal project implementation.

Joining QuerySets from different tables

I am trying to use Django to create reports from a legacy MS SQL application. The application includes two identical schemas for storing tickets, one called Requests, the other ArchiveRequests.
I would like to create a single QuerySet that holds data from both tables. This can be done in T-SQL like this
SELECT TOP 100 *
FROM [AmCatHDSQL].[dbo].[ArchiveRequests]
UNION SELECT *
FROM [AmCatHDSQL].[dbo].[Requests]
However trying to union them using the | operator raises an AssertionError, Cannot combine queries on two different base models.
Is there a way to tell Django that these models are identical and can be unioned, or is there a better way to reference these (as a single model?)

Need a clever way to get orders from all stores while each store is in a different database

The setup
I have the following database setup:
CentralDB
Table: Stores
Table: Users
Store1DB
Table: Orders
Store2DB
Table: Orders
Store3DB
Table: Orders
Store4DB
Table: Orders
... etc
CentralDB contains the users, logging and a Stores table with the name of each store database and general information about each store such as address, name, description, image, etc...
All the StoreDB's use the same structure just different data.
It is important to know that the list of stores will shrink and increase in the future.
The main client communicating with this setup is an API REST Service which gets passed a STOREID in the Header of each request telling it which database to connect to. This works flawlessly so far.
The reasoning
Whenever we need to do database maintenance on one store, we don't want all other stores to be down.
Backup management should be per store
Not having to write the WHERE storeID=x every time and for every table
Performance: each store could run on its own database server if the need arises
The goal
I need my REST API Service to somehow get all orders from all stores in one query.
Will you help me figure out a way to do this without hardcoding all storedb names? I was thinking about a stored procedure on the CentralDB but I was hoping there would be other solutions. In any case it has to be very efficient.
One option would be to have a list of databases stored in a "system" table in CentralDB.
Then you could create a stored procedure that would read the database names from the table, loop through them with cursor and generate a dynamic SQL that would UNION the results from all the databases. This way you would get a single recordset of results.
However, this database design is IMHO flawed. There is no reason for using multiple databases to store data that belongs to the same "domain". All the reasons that you have mentioned can be solved by using a single database with proper database design. Having multiple databases will create multiple problems on the long term:
you will need to change structure of all the DBs when you modify your database model
you will need to create/drop new databases when new stores are added/removed from your system
you will need to have items and other entities that are "common" to all the stores duplicated in all the DBs
what about reporting requirements (e.g. get sales data for stores 1 and 2 together, etc.) - this will require creating complex union queries...
etc...
On the long term, managing and maintaining this model will be a big pain.
I'd maintain a set of views that UNION ALL all the data. Every time a store is added or deleted those views must be updated. This can be automated.
The views provide an illusion to the application that there is only one database.
What I would not do is have each SQL query or procedure query all the database names and create dynamic SQL. That would entail lots of code duplication and an unnecessary loss of performance. This approach is error prone. Better generate code once in a central place and have all other SQL code reference that generated code.

ADO - Can I edit results of a complex query with multiple join statements?

I'm working on a data conversion utility which can push data from one master database out to a number of different databases. The utility its self will have no knowledge of how data is kept in the destination (table structure), but I would like to provide writing a SQL statement to return data from the destination using a complex SQL query with multiple join statements. As long as the data is in a standardized format that the utility can recognize (field names) in an ADO query.
What I would like to do is then modify the live data in this ADO Query. However, since there are multiple join statements, I'm not sure if it's possible to do this. I know at least with BDE (I've never used BDE), it was very strict and you had to return all fields (*) and such. ADO I know is more flexible, but I don't know quite how flexible in this case.
Is it supposed to be possible to modify data in a TADOQuery in this manner, when the results include fields from different tables? And even if so, suppose I want to append a new record to the end (TADOQuery.Append). Would it append to two different tables?
The actual primary table I'm selecting from has a complimentary table which is joined by the same primary key field, one is a "Small" table (brief info) and the other is a "Detail" table (more info for each record in Small table). So, a typical statement would include something like this:
select ts.record_uid, ts.SomeField, td.SomeOtherField from table_small ts
join table_detail td on td.record_uid = ts.record_uid
There are also a number of other joins to records in other tables, but I'm not worried about appending to those ones. I'm only worried about appending to the "Small" and "Detail" tables - at the same time.
Is such a thing possible in an ADO Query? I'm willing to tweak and modify the SQL statement in any way necessary to make this possible. I have a bad feeling though that it's not possible.
Compatibility:
SQL Server 2000 through 2008 R2
Delphi XE2
Editing these Fields which have no influence on the joins is usually no problem.
Appending is ... you can limit the Append to one of the Tables by
procedure TForm.ADSBeforePost(DataSet: TDataSet);
begin
inherited;
TCustomADODataSet(DataSet).Properties['Unique Table'].Value := 'table_small';
end;
but without an Requery you won't get much further.
The better way will be setting Values by Procedure e.g. in BeforePost, Requery and Abort.
If your View would be persistent you would be able to use INSTEAD OF Triggers
Jerry,
I encountered the same problem on FireBird, and from experience I can tell you that it can be made(up to a small complexity) by using CachedUpdates . A very good resource is this one - http://podgoretsky.com/ftp/Docs/Delphi/D5/dg/11_cache.html. This article has the answers to all your questions.
I have abandoned the original idea of live ADO query updates, as it has become more complex than I can wrap my head around. The scope of the data push project has changed, and therefore this is no longer an issue for me, however still an interesting subject to know.
The new structure of the application consists of attaching multiple "Field Links" on various fields from the original set of data. Each of these links references the original field name and a SQL Statement which is to be executed when that field is being imported. Multiple field links can be on one single field, therefore can execute multiple statements, placing the value in various tables, etc. The end goal was an app which I can easily and repeatedly export a common dataset from an original source to any outside source with different data structures, without having to recompile the app.
However the concept of cached updates was not appealing to me, simply for the fact pointed out in the link in RBA's answer that data can be changed in the database in the mean-time. So I will instead integrate my own method of customizable data pushes.

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