asked
SSMS Text output numeric column width
Hello, I am new to SQL Server Management Studio (2005). I use it with text output for quick analysis of our data. The statement SELECT 123.123456 A, CAST(123.123456 AS DECIMAL(6, 2)) B, CONVERT(NUMERIC(8, 4), 123.123456) C returns the 3 columns, each with 49 characters width, no matter what the cast or convert arguments are. This means data easily falls out of screen and requires a lot of horizontal scrolling. Is it possible to control the width of the numerical columns in SSMS (with text output)? It used to work well with the "Query Analyzer". What I would like to get from the previous statement is: A B C ....................................... ...... ........ 123.123456 123.12 123.1235 (hyphens don't show well in the preview). Thanks!!!
If grid output doesn't suit you and you're formatting specifically for the text layout in SSMS, you can re-cast your columns as fixed width character columns: SELECT CAST(123.123456 AS CHAR(10)) A, CAST(CAST(123.123456 AS DECIMAL(6, 2)) AS CHAR(10)) B, CAST(CONVERT(NUMERIC(8, 4), 123.123456) AS CHAR(10)) C A B C ---------- ---------- ---------- 123.123456 123.12 123.1235 (1 row(s) affected) (Query output formatted as code in the question editor to preserve hyphens and spaces)
if you don't mind your column headers not lining up with the data, you can go to Tools -> Options... -> Query Results -> SQL Server -> Results to Text and change the output format from "Column aligned" to one of the delimited options. This will display the result along with the delimiter and remove the padding that comes with column alignment. This dialog also lets you leave column headers out, right align numeric results, and limit the maximum number of characters displayed in each column (with a 30 character minimum)
