Iterate over system tables to get a list of tables

Question

I need to create a query to first get all the tables with a particular column ( column name is log ) and, once I have this list of tables, iterate over each table to see if the log column contains a specific piece of text. So far I have this:

SELECT b.name into mytemp
FROM syscolumns a INNER JOIN sysobjects b ON
a.id = b.id
AND
b.type = 'u'
WHERE a.name = 'log'

If I do a select * from mytemp, I get the 5 tables I'm looking for. I need to write some kind of loop to iterate over these 5 tables, do a select log from thistable where log like '%hack%'. I'm close ( at least I'd like to think so ), but I need the rest of this query. I hope someone can help me. Thanks.

Answer 1

0

Hello kathy,

You can use dynamic sql

DECLARE @SQL NVARCHAR(1000),

       @parameter NVARCHAR(500),

       @outPut VARCHAR(1000)

SET @SQL = 'SELECT @OUT = STUFF((SELECT ''UNION ''+''SELECT ID FROM ''+TABLE_SCHEMA+''.''+TABLE_NAME 

+'' WHERE Log LIKE ''+''''''%hack%'''''' as ''data()''

FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS

WHERE COLUMN_NAME = ''Log''

FOR XML PATH('''')),1,5,'''')'


SET @parameter = N'@out VARCHAR(1000) OUTPUT'

exec sp_executesql @SQL,@parameter,@out= @OutPut OUTPUT

EXEC (@outPut)

answered Aug 12 '10 at 08:58 PM

Cyborg
10.1k ● 29 ● 39 ● 44

+1 use a cursor to iterate and create the dynamic SQL. Also keep in mind that like %somevalue% causes SQL to ignore indexes.

Aug 12 '10 at 10:43 PM Håkan Winther

Hakan winther, i agree with you, If your filter is like 'SomValue%' then optimizer will not ignore the indexes.

Aug 12 '10 at 10:56 PM Cyborg

It's giving me an error: Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Invalid column name 'ID'. This is against sql server 2008.

Aug 13 '10 at 04:53 AM KathyTheGreat

sorry its my fault since i worked with a sample table, replace that id with 'Log'

Aug 13 '10 at 05:00 AM Cyborg

Cyborg - thank you, thank you. It worked great. I so appreciate your help.

Aug 13 '10 at 05:03 AM KathyTheGreat

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Iterate over system tables to get a list of tables

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