How to use variable in commanda expecting database, table, user name - sql-server

I need to create some stored procedures that receive as parameter db name, table name, user name, etc and do some processing on them.
I can create them using dynamic sql, but I'd like to know if it's possible to use variable name in commands that expects db name or table name.
E.g. instead of
USE [MyDataBase]
CREATE LOGIN [MyUser] WITH PASSWORD=N'MyPass', DEFAULT_DATABASE=[MyDataBase]
to be able to have
DECLARE #MyDB nvarchar(100)
DECLARE #MyUser nvarchar(100)
-- .... set #MyUser here
Select #MyDB = DB_NAME()
USE #MyDB
CREATE LOGIN #MyUser WITH PASSWORD=#MyPass, DEFAULT_DATABASE= #DbName
Thanks

These can't be parameterised unfortunately.
You need to use dynamic SQL.
See The Curse and Blessings of Dynamic SQL - Dealing with Dynamic Table and Column Names for some advice on how to do this as safely as possible.

Related

find/replace in SQL server

I have a query that I want to use every month, but the table it will point to will change slightly. I want to use a function analogous to find/replace to just update a portion of the table names referenced. Each table will just change its name by the Month_Year for the file. I have tried a local variable with declare/set and it does not work. This is what I would like to do...
declare #file_name varchar(max)
SET #file_name = 'oct_16' --set as month_year used in table name
alter table sp_panel_#file_name
add LFDOB varchar(max)
You need dynamic query
exec ('alter table sp_panel_+'#file_name+' add LFDOB varchar(max)')
I just realized there is an actual "find/replace" function within SQL. It will do the trick until we can fully automate

How does SQL Server lookup object names in stored procedures?

I have a stored procedure in SQL Server 2008 such as:
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[test]
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON;
SELECT user_name();
SELECT SCHEMA_NAME()
SELECT * FROM MyView
END
I have a view named testuser.MyView. I then call the SP using:
exec as user = 'testuser' exec test
This shows the user_name and SCHEMA_NAME are both set to testuser
However I also get a Invalid object name 'MyView'. message, as the SP is still looking up the view name in the dbo schema.
Is there anyway to change how the SP is executed so the MyView object references testuser.MyView without having to use a fully qualified name?
I am trying to use a single set of many stored procedures, on identical table structures in different schemas. I really want to avoid rewriting all the SPs using dynamic SQL, or to create copies of all the SPs each using qualified names.
Unqualified object names are resolved using the module owner's default schema. This behavior can't be changed so you'll need to resort to the other methods you mentioned.
Since you already create separate tables and views for each user with the same structure, why not create stored procedures in the user's schema at the same time?

How can I create a new database with schema within a stored procedure?

I want to write a TSQL stored procedure that creates a database with a specified name, and pre-populates it with some schema.
So I use lots of EXEC statements:
EXEC('CREATE TABLE ' + #dbName + '.dbo.MyTable (...)');
etc, along with some CREATE PROCEDURE, CREATE FUNCTION etc. However, the problem comes from when I want to create a type, as CREATE TYPE statements can't have the database specified, and you can't have USE #dbName within the stored procedure.
How can I create a type in another database in a stored procedure?
There are certain commands that can't use used as ssarabando suggests, among them is CREATE SCHEMA, which throws Msg 111 when used in with that technique.
The work around is to nest dynamic SQL blocks as follows:
exec('use tempdb; exec sp_executesql N''create schema test'' ')
The outer block does nothing except change the database, so that the inner block has the correct context when it is executed.
Notice that the inner parameter to sp_executesql needs two single quotes.
You may want to take a look at sp_addtype instead. You can execute this in the database you want.
You could also use this, for example:
EXEC('use ' + #dbName + ';create type somename from int not null;')
That'll select the correct database before creating the type.

SQL Server 2008: Creating dynamic Synonyms?

in my SQL Server 2008 database I have a number of different tables with the same structure. I query them in different stored procedures. My first try was to pass the table name to the stored procedure, like:
CREATE PROCEDURE MyTest
#tableName nvarchar(255)
AS
BEGIN
SELECT * FROM #tableName
END
But we can't use parameters for table names in SQL. So I asked you and tried the solution with using Synonyms instead of a parameter for the table name:
CREATE PROCEDURE MyTest
#tableName nvarchar(255)
AS
BEGIN
EXEC SetSimilarityTableNameSynonym #tbl = #tableName;
SELECT * FROM dbo.CurrentSimilarityTable
END
SetSimilarityTableNameSynonym is a SP to set the Synonym dbo.CurrentSimilarityTable to the passed value (the specific table name). It looks like:
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[SetSimilarityTableNameSynonym]
#tbl nvarchar(255)
AS
BEGIN
IF object_id('dbo.CurrentSimilarityTable', 'SN') IS NOT NULL
DROP SYNONYM CurrentSimilarityTable;
-- Set the synonym for each existing table
IF #tbl = 'byArticle'
CREATE SYNONYM dbo.CurrentSimilarityTable FOR dbo.similarity_byArticle;
...
END
Now, as you probably see, the problem is with concurrent access to the SPs which will "destroy" each others assigned synonym. So I tried to create dynamic synonyms for each single SP-call with a GUID via NewID()
DECLARE #theGUID uniqueidentifier;
SET #theGUID=NEWID()
SET #theSynonym = 'dbo.SimTabSyn_' + CONVERT(nvarchar(255), #theGUID);
BUT ... I can't use the dynamical created name to create a synonym:
CREATE SYNONYM #theSynonym FOR dbo.similarity_byArticle;
doesn't work.
Has anybody an idea, how to get dynamical synonyms running? Is this even possible?
Thanks in advance,
Frank
All I can suggest is to run the CREATE SYNONYM in dynamic SQL. And this also means your code is running at quite high rights (db_owner or ddl_admin). You may need EXECUTE AS OWNER to allow it when you secure the code.
And how many synonyms will you end up with for the same table? If you have to do it this way, I'd use OBJECT_ID not NEWID and test first so you have one synonym per table.
But if you have one synonym per table then why not use the table name...?
What is the point is there creating 1 or more synonyms for the same table, given the table names are already unique...
I'd fix the database design.
Why would you want multiple concurrent users to overwrite the single resource (synonym)?
If your MyTest procedure is taking a the table name as a parameter, why not simply do dynamic SQL? You can validate the #tableName against against a hardcoded list of tables that this procedure is allowed to select from, or against sys.tables

Can I set a default schema for within a stored procedure?

I'm working on the next update for StackQL.
One thing I want to do is have the ability to query over several releases. So when I loaded the October data, for example, I didn't delete the old September database. It's still out there. In fact, you can even still query it by including the database name like this:
select top 10 * from SO_Sept09..Posts
This will be even more important as they start providing data for ServerFault and SuperUser.
But I don't like having a whole bunch of databases out there to support this. I'd much rather put all the data in the same database and separate each distinct set into it's own schema. But to make this possible, I need to be able to set a default schema as part of the stored procedure that runs the query, based on a parameter passed to the stored procedure that tells it which database the user selected from a future drop down list to appear in the tool bar.
Queries at StackQL are eventually just passed to the exec() function like this:
exec(#QueryText)
Is there anything I can do either in the stored procedure or prepend to the QueryText string (ala USE [DatabaseName]) to set the default schema used in a query?
There are pieces of how to do this in various places here, but not altogether. The way to do this is:
Make a unique login & user for each schema
Make these users the owners of each different schema.
Set each such user's default schema to be the schema that they own.
Use the syntax EXECUTE ('sql commands') AS USER = 'schema-owner' to execute your SQL commands in the context of that default schema.
The following script demonstrates this:
--====== Create the Login for the User:
CREATE LOGIN [UserTest1] WITH PASSWORD='whatever', DEFAULT_DATABASE=[TestUsers], DEFAULT_LANGUAGE=[us_english]
GO
--====== Make a User for the Login:
CREATE USER [UserTest1] FOR LOGIN [UserTest1]
GO
--====== Make a Schema owned by the User and default to it:
-- (I assume that you already have the schemas)
CREATE SCHEMA [UserTest1] AUTHORIZATION [UserTest1]
GO
ALTER USER [UserTest1] WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA=[UserTest1]
GO
--====== Make a sProc in dbo
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[TestSchema_Exec] AS
SELECT 'executing in schema [dbo]'
GO
--====== Make a similar sProc in New Schema
CREATE PROCEDURE [UserTest1].[TestSchema_Exec] AS
SELECT 'executing in schema [UserTest1]'
GO
--========= Demonstrate that we can switch Default Schemas:
EXEC('TestSchema_Exec')
EXEC('TestSchema_Exec') AS USER = 'UserTest1'
Other than modifying #QueryText itself, the only thing I can think of is a user's default schema:
ALTER USER SO_Sept09_Reader WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA = SO_Sept09
...and then connect as a different user for each schema you want to use. Hackity hack.
But if your query is dynamically constructed anyway (and I'm sure you know why that's often not a great idea), it might be easiest to just add a schema placeholder to the query text, and pass the schema name along with the query to a replacement function.
Another possibility is to generated copies of each SP in each schema, the unmodified table name in an SP refers to tables in the same schema.
Note this doesn't work with dynamic SQL inside such an SP:
CREATE PROCEDURE schema_a.SP
#somesql AS varchar(MAX)
AS
BEGIN
EXEC ( #somesql )
END
CREATE PROCEDURE schema_b.SP
#somesql AS varchar(MAX)
AS
BEGIN
EXEC ( #somesql )
END
Won't work, because the schema affinity is lost inside the EXEC.
While this:
CREATE PROCEDURE schema_a.SP
AS
BEGIN
SELECT * FROM tbl -- Will use schema_a.tbl first
END
CREATE PROCEDURE schema_b.SP
AS
BEGIN
SELECT * FROM tbl -- Will use schema_b.tbl first
END
works fine.
Similarly:
EXEC ( 'EXEC schema_a.SP' )
would obviously work fine.
Untried, but: could you combine the different schemas' data into one view, and add a column calling out the schema name?
CREATE VIEW AllPosts AS
SELECT Data1, Data2, 'Sept09' AS Partition FROM SO_Sept09..Posts
UNION ALL
SELECT Data1, Data2, 'Oct09' AS Partition FROM SO_Oct09..Posts
...
SELECT * FROM AllPosts WHERE Partition = 'Sept09'
SELECT * FROM dbo.AllPosts('Sept09') -- if use table-valued function instead
Okay, I have a new way to do this that might work a little better for me. It's a variant on my comment to Michael Petrotta's answer:
But it does give me the idea to maybe have several users and pick the connection string on the fly.
What I will do is have just one user for executing these queries, but I will swap out the connection string on the fly to specify the correct Initial Catalog.

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