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

Chapter 2: Tools of the Trade
bcp is a command-line program whose sole purpose in life is to move formatted data in and out of SQL
Server en masse. It was around long before what has now become SSIS was thought of, and while SSIS is
replacing bcp for most import/export activity, bcp still has a certain appeal for people who like commandline
utilities. In addition, you’ll find an awful lot of SQL Server installations out there that still depend
on bcp to move data around fast.
SQL Ser ver Profiler
I can’t tell you how many times this one has saved my bacon by telling me what was going on with my
server when nothing else would. It’s not something a developer (or even a DBA, for that matter) tends
to use every day, but it’s extremely powerful and can be your salvation when you’re sure nothing can
save you.
SQL Server Profiler is, in short, a real-time tracing tool. Whereas Performance Monitor is all about tracking
what’s happening at the macro level — system configuration stuff — the Profiler is concerned with
tracking specifics. This is both a blessing and a curse. The Profiler can, depending on how you configure
your trace, give you the specific syntax of every statement executed on your server. Now imagine that
you are doing performance tuning on a system with 1000 users. I’m sure you can imagine the reams of
paper that would be used to print the statements executed by so many people in just a minute or two.
Fortunately, the Profiler has a vast array of filters to help you narrow things down and track more specific
problems, such as long-running queries, or the exact syntax of a query being run within a stored procedure.
This is nice when your procedure has conditional statements that cause it to run different things under
different circumstances.
sqlcmd
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As I mentioned back when we were talking about the Management Console, SQL Server has a tool to use
when you want to include SQL commands and management tasks in command-line batch files — sqlcmd.
You won’t see sqlcmd in your SQL Server program group. Indeed, it’s amazing how many people don’t even
know that this utility is around; that’s because it’s a console application rather than a Windows program.
Prior to version 7.0 and the advent of what was then called DTS (now SSIS), sqlcmd was often used in
conjunction with the Bulk Copy Program (bcp) to manage the import of data from external systems. This
type of use is decreasing as administrators and developers everywhere learn the power and simplicity
of SSIS. Even so, there are occasionally items that you want to script into a larger command-line process.
sqlcmd gives you that capability.
sqlcmd can be very handy, particularly if you use files that contain scripts. Keep in mind, however, that
there are tools that can accomplish much of what sqlcmd can more effectively and with a user interface that
is more consistent with the other things you’re doing with your SQL Server. You can find full coverage of
sqlcmd in Professional SQL Server 2008 Programming.
Once again, just for history and being able to understand if people you talk SQL Server with use a
different lingo, sqlcmd is yet another new name for this tool of many names. Originally, it was referred
to as ISQL. In SQL Server 2000 and 7.0, it was known as osql.