Beginning Microsoft SQL Server 2008 ... - S3 Tech Training

Let’s build an example in the AdventureWorks2008 database by creating a dummy table to grab
dynamic information out of:
USE AdventureWorks2008;
GO
--Create The Table. We’ll pull info from here for our dynamic SQL
CREATE TABLE DynamicSQLExample
(
TableID int IDENTITY NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT PKDynamicSQLExample
PRIMARY KEY,
SchemaName varchar(128) NOT NULL,
TableName varchar(128) NOT NULL
);
GO
/* Populate the table. In this case, We’re grabbing every user
** table object in this database */
INSERT INTO DynamicSQLExample
SELECT s.name AS SchemaName, t.name AS TableName
FROM sys.schemas s
JOIN sys.tables t
ON s.schema_id = t.schema_id;
This should get us a response something like:
(73 row(s) affected)
To quote the old advertising disclaimer: “Actual results may vary.” It’s going to depend on which
examples you’ve already followed along with in the book, which ones you haven’t, and for which ones
you took the initiative and did a DROP on once you were done with them. In any case, don’t sweat it
too much.
OK, so what we now have is a list of all the tables in our current database. Now let’s say that we wanted
to select some data from one of the tables, but we wanted to identify the table only at runtime by using
its ID. For example, I’ll pull out all the data for the table with an ID of 1:
DECLARE @SchemaName varchar(128);
DECLARE @TableName varchar(128);
-- Grab the table name that goes with our ID
SELECT @SchemaName = SchemaName, @TableName = TableName
FROM DynamicSQLExample
WHERE TableID = 25;
-- Finally, pass that value into the EXEC statement
EXEC (‘SELECT * FROM ‘ + @SchemaName + ‘.’ + @TableName);
Chapter 11: Writing Scripts and Batches
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