Trying to write some T-SQL to iterate through the DB tables - sql-server

Question

I am using SQL Server 2008 R2 on dev, and SQL Azure for test and live.
I wish to write a little procedure to reset the identity seeds since SQL Azure does not support DBCC.
I have some workaround code which works, but I do not want to write it out for each table, so was trying to write a routine that iterates through the DB tables.
Tables:
SELECT * FROM information_schema.tables
Code:
delete from TABLE_NAME where Id>150000
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [TABLE_NAME] ON
GO
INSERT INTO [TABLE_NAME](Id) VALUES(150000)
GO
delete from TABLE_NAME where Id=150000
GO
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [TABLE_NAME] OFF
GO
I guess I need to wrap this in a loop. Sorry my T-SQL is not that strong, hence the request for help.
Also it would be helpful to omit all tables with TABLE_NAME starting with aspnet_ and use only TABLE_TYPE = "BASE TABLE"
Any help hugely appreciated.

Answer 1

Unless somebody else knows a trick that I don't, you're probably stuck using dynamic SQL and iterating through a list of table names using either a cursor or a temporary table. The cursor approach would look something like this:
declare #TableName nvarchar(257);
declare #sql nvarchar(max);
declare TableCursor cursor read_only for
select
TABLE_SCHEMA + '.' + TABLE_NAME
from
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
where
TABLE_NAME not like 'aspnet\_%' escape '\' and
TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE';
open TableCursor;
fetch next from TableCursor into #TableName;
while ##fetch_status = 0
begin
set #sql = 'select top 1 * from ' + #TableName;
exec sp_executesql #sql;
fetch next from TableCursor into #TableName;
end
close TableCursor;
deallocate TableCursor;
You can read more about cursors here. Alternatively, you could do it with an in-memory table like this:
declare #Tables table (RowId int identity(1, 1), TableName nvarchar(257));
declare #TableName nvarchar(257);
declare #Index int;
declare #TableCount int;
declare #sql nvarchar(max);
insert into #Tables (TableName)
select
TABLE_SCHEMA + '.' + TABLE_NAME
from
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
where
TABLE_NAME not like 'aspnet\_%' escape '\' and
TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE';
set #TableCount = ##rowcount;
set #Index = 1
while #Index <= #TableCount
begin
select #TableName = TableName from #Tables where RowId = #Index;
set #sql = 'select top 1 * from ' + #TableName;
exec sp_executesql #sql;
set #Index = #Index + 1;
end
In the interest of brevity, my examples use a much simpler SQL statement than yours—I'm just selecting one record from each table—but this ought to be enough to illustrate how you can get this done.