Find all ERDs containing table with specified name - sql

Question

Is it possible that I can query for names of all ERDs (Entity Relationship Diagram) which contain table with name
Like '%mytable%'
Something like this:
select *
from <ERD objects>
where tableName like '%%'
Actually, I have a large Database with lots of ERDs. So, to understand the scope of a table I want to browse ERDs of that specific table.

Answer 1

As I understand you need a list of tables contained in a database diagrams. There you can help this article. I will add part of it here:
The diagram itself is stored in a binary field. And you can not convert it into readable form without difficulties. For deserializing this field (called definition) we need 2 functions:
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[Tool_VarbinaryToVarchar_Text]
(
#VarbinaryValue VARBINARY(max),
#bitASCIIOnly BIT = 0
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(max) AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #NumberOfBytes INT
SET #NumberOfBytes = DATALENGTH(#VarbinaryValue)
-- PART ONE --
IF (#NumberOfBytes > 4)
BEGIN
DECLARE #FirstHalfNumberOfBytes INT
DECLARE #SecondHalfNumberOfBytes INT
SET #FirstHalfNumberOfBytes = #NumberOfBytes/2
SET #SecondHalfNumberOfBytes = #NumberOfBytes - #FirstHalfNumberOfBytes
-- Call this function recursively with the two parts of the input split in half
RETURN dbo.Tool_VarbinaryToVarchar_Text(CAST(SUBSTRING(#VarbinaryValue, 1 , #FirstHalfNumberOfBytes) AS VARBINARY(max)),#bitASCIIOnly)
+ dbo.Tool_VarbinaryToVarchar_Text(CAST(SUBSTRING(#VarbinaryValue, #FirstHalfNumberOfBytes+1 , #SecondHalfNumberOfBytes) AS VARBINARY(max)),#bitASCIIOnly)
END
IF (#NumberOfBytes = 0)
BEGIN
RETURN '' -- No bytes found, therefore no 'hex string' is returned
END
-- PART TWO --
DECLARE #HighByte INT
-- #NumberOfBytes <= 4 (four or less characters/8 hex digits were input)
-- eg. 88887777 66665555 44443333 22221111
-- We'll process ONLY the right-most (least-significant) Byte, which consists
-- of eight bits
-- 2. Carve off the rightmost eight bits/single hex digit (ie 22221111)
-- Divide by 16 does a shift-left (now processing 2222)
SET #HighByte = CAST(#VarbinaryValue AS INT) & 255
IF #bitASCIIOnly = 1 AND (#HighByte < 32 OR #HighByte > 126) SET #HighByte=13;
-- 3. Trim the byte (two hex values) from the right (least significant) input Binary
-- in preparation for further parsing
SET #VarbinaryValue = SUBSTRING(#VarbinaryValue, 1, (#NumberOfBytes-1))
-- 4. Recursively call this method on the remaining Binary data, concatenating the text
-- 'value' we just decoded as their ASCII character representation
-- ie. we pass 88887777 66665555 44443333 back to this function, adding X to the result string
RETURN dbo.Tool_VarbinaryToVarchar_Text(#VarbinaryValue,#bitASCIIOnly) +
CHAR(#HighByte)
END
And:
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnTool_ScriptDiagram2005_Text]()
RETURNS
#tblOut TABLE
(
-- Add the column definitions for the TABLE variable here
diagramname NVARCHAR(128),
diagram_id INT PRIMARY KEY,
diagram_text VARCHAR(MAX),
diagram_ASCII VARCHAR(MAX)
)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #name NVARCHAR(128);
DECLARE #diagram_id INT;
DECLARE #index INT;
DECLARE #size INT;
DECLARE #chunk INT;
DECLARE #line VARCHAR(MAX);
DECLARE #lineASC VARCHAR(MAX);
DECLARE #CurrentPos INT;
SELECT #CurrentPos = MIN(diagram_id) FROM dbo.sysdiagrams;
WHILE (#CurrentPos IS NOT NULL)
BEGIN
-- Set start index, and chunk 'constant' value
SET #index = 1; --
SET #chunk = 32; -- values that work: 2, 6
-- values that fail: 15,16, 64
SELECT #diagram_id = diagram_id,
#size = DATALENGTH(definition),
#name = name
FROM dbo.sysdiagrams
WHERE diagram_id = #CurrentPos;
-- Now with the diagram_id, do all the work
SET #line = '';
SET #lineASC = '';
WHILE #index < #size
BEGIN
-- Output as many UPDATE statements as required to append all the diagram binary
-- data, represented as hexadecimal strings
SELECT #line = #line + dbo.Tool_VarbinaryToVarchar_Text(SUBSTRING (definition, #index, #chunk),0),
#lineASC = #lineASC + dbo.Tool_VarbinaryToVarchar_Text(SUBSTRING (definition, #index, #chunk),1)
FROM dbo.sysdiagrams
WHERE diagram_id = #CurrentPos;
SET #index = #index + #chunk;
END
INSERT INTO #tblOut (diagramname, diagram_id, diagram_text, diagram_ASCII)
VALUES (#name, #diagram_id, #line, REPLACE(#lineASC,CHAR(13),''));
SELECT #CurrentPos = MIN(diagram_id)
FROM dbo.sysdiagrams
WHERE diagram_id > #CurrentPos;
END
RETURN;
END
After that you can run:
SELECT *
FROM [dbo].[fnTool_ScriptDiagram2005_Text] ()
WHERE diagram_ASCII LIKE '%TableToFind%'
For example I have created diagram TestDiagram with 2 tables named whatever and IE_Stat. In return query:
Root EntrypfoBCompObj_ !"#$%&'()*+,-.123456789:(}5n]4o[\0V?[?i???V?[?i??T,,,4") -bH''Uu94941#xV4XdboIE_StatMicrosoft DDS Form 2.0Embedded Object9q&sch_labels_visibled(ActiveTableViewMode1 TableViewMode:0:4,0,28DdsStreamSchema UDV Default&/DSREF-SCHEMA-CONTENTS,0Schema UDV Default Post V66;4,0,2310,1,1890,5,1260 TableViewMode:12,0,284,0,2805 TableViewMode:22,0,284,0,2310 TableViewMode:32,0,284,0,2310 TableViewMode:4>4,0,284,0,2310,12,2730,11,1680(ActiveTableViewMode1 TableViewMode:0:4,0,284,0,2310,1,1890,5,1260 TableViewMode:12,0,284,0,2805 TableViewMode:22,0,284,0,2310 TableViewMode:32,0,284,0,2310 TableViewMode:4>4,0,284,0,2310,12,2730,11,1680NaQW9 LHEData Source=********;Initial Catalog=test;Integrated Security=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=False;TrustServerCertificate=True;Packet Size=4096;Application Name="Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio"TestDiagram&whateverdbo$IE_StatdbokE7d2pN{1634CDD7-0888-42E3-9FA2-B6D32563B91D}bR
you can see both table names.