Is it possible to search and replace all occurrences of a string in all columns in all tables of a database? I use Microsoft SQL Server.
Not easily, though I can thing of two ways to do it:
Write a series of stored procedures that identify all varchar and text columns of all tables, and generate individual update statements for each column of each table of the form "UPDATE foo SET BAR = REPLACE(BAR,'foobar','quux')". This will probably involve a lot of queries against the system tables, with a lot of experimentation -- Microsoft doesn't go out of its way to document this stuff.
Export the entire database to a single text file, do a search/replace on that, and then re-import the entire database. Given that you're using MS SQL Server, this is actually the easier approach. Microsoft created the Microsoft SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard for other reasons, but it makes a fine tool for exporting all of the tables of a SQL Server database as a text file containing pure SQL DDL and DML. Run the tool to export all of the tables for a database, edit the resulting file as you need, and then feed the file back to sqlcmd to recreate the database.
Given a choice, I'd use the second method, as long as the DPW works with your version of SQL Server. The last time I used the tool, it met my needs (MS SQL Server 2000 / 2005) but it had some quirks when working with database Roles.
In MySQL, you can do it very easily like this:
update [table_name] set [field_name] = replace([field_name],'[string_to_find]','[string_to_replace]');
I have personally tested this successfully on a production server.
Example:
update users set vct_filesneeded = replace(vct_filesneeded,'.avi','.ai');
Ref: http://www.mediacollege.com/computer/database/mysql/find-replace.html
A good starting point for writing such a query is the "Search all columns in all the tables in a database for a specific value" stored procedure. The full code is at the link (not trivial, but copy/paste it and use it, it just works).
From there on it's relatively trivial to amend the code to do a replace of the found values.
Related
I have a stored procedure function as well as table in the SQL Server enterprise 2014. I also have data in the table. Now I need same table and data in PostgreSql(pgAdmin4).
Can anyone suggest to me the idea to migrate data to POSTGRESQL or any idea on creating the SQL script so that I can use psql to run the script?
Depending on how much data you have, you could script out the table and data. Then you could tweak the script as needed for PostgreSQL:
Right click on the SQL database > Tasks > Generate Scripts
On the "Choose Objects" screen, select your specific table then select "Next>"
On the "Set Scripting Options" screen, select "Advanced"
Find the option called "Types of data to script", then select "Schema and data" and select "OK"
Set the filename and continue through the dialog until the file is generated
Tweak the sql script for any specific PostgreSQL syntax
If there is a larger amount of data, you might look into some type of data transfer tool like SSIS.
Exporting the table structure and data as Josh Jay describes will likely require some fixes where the syntax doesn't match, but it should be doable if not tedious. Luckily there are existing conversion tools available to help.
You could also try using a foreign data wrapper to map the tables in SQL Server to a running instance of PostgreSQL. Then it's just a matter of copying tables. Depends on your needs and where each database server is located relative to one another.
The stored procedures will be far more difficult to handle unfortunately. While Oracle's pl/sql language is substantially similar to PostgreSQL's pl/pgsql, MS SQL Server/Sybase's TransactSQL dialect on the other hand is different enough to require rewrites. If the TransactSQL functions also access .Net objects, the migration task may end up far more difficult as you reimplement dependencies or find logical equivalents.
I have a SQL database and tables that I would like to replicate in another SQL Server. I would like to create a SQL script that creates the database and tables in a single script.
I can create "Create" script using the SQL Management Studio for each case (Database and Tables), but I would like to know if combining the both "Create" scripts into single script would be enough.
Thanks.
Although Clayton's answer will get you there (eventually), in SQL2005/2008/R2/2012 you have a far easier option:
Right-click on the Database, select Tasks and then Generate Scripts, which will launch the Script Wizard. This allows you to generate a single script that can recreate the full database including table/indexes & constraints/stored procedures/functions/users/etc. There are a multitude of options that you can configure to customise the output, but most of it is self explanatory.
If you are happy with the default options, you can do the whole job in a matter of seconds.
If you want to recreate the data in the database (as a series of INSERTS) I'd also recommend SSMS Tools Pack (Free for SQL 2008 version, Paid for SQL 2012 version).
In SQL Server Management Studio you can right click on the database you want to replicate, and select "Script Database as" to have the tool create the appropriate SQL file to replicate that database on another server. You can repeat this process for each table you want to create, and then merge the files into a single SQL file. Don't forget to add a using statement after you create your Database but prior to any table creation.
In more recent versions of SQL Server you can get this in one file in SSMS.
Right click a database.
Tasks
Generate Scripts
This will launch a wizard where you can script the entire database or just portions. There does not appear to be a T-SQL way of doing this.
An excellent explanation can be found here: Generate script in SQL Server Management Studio
Courtesy Ali Issa Here's what you have to do:
Right click the database (not the table) and select tasks --> generate scripts
Next --> select the requested table/tables (from select specific database objects)
Next --> click advanced --> types of data to script = schema and data
If you want to create a script that just generates the tables (no data) you can skip the advanced part of the instructions!
Not sure why SSMS doesn’t take into account execution order but it just doesn’t. This is not an issue for small databases but what if your database has 200 objects? In that case order of execution does matter because it’s not really easy to go through all of these.
For unordered scripts generated by SSMS you can go following
a) Execute script (some objects will be inserted some wont, there will be some errors)
b) Remove all objects from the script that have been added to database
c) Go back to a) until everything is eventually executed
Alternative option is to use third party tool such as ApexSQL Script or any other tools already mentioned in this thread (SSMS toolpack, Red Gate and others).
All of these will take care of the dependencies for you and save you even more time.
Yes, you can add as many SQL statements into a single script as you wish. Just one thing to note: the order matters. You can't INSERT into a table until you CREATE it; you can't set a foreign key until the primary key is inserted.
How can I export all of my rows in a table to sql script in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and then import them to another database?
Thanks in advance
If you moving it to another sql db you can right click the database you want and choose tasks -> generate scripts. That will launch a a wizard - follow along, choose the option to script all tables and data. Then execute that script in the new db(assuming that you've already created one with the same name)
If you can't find a data import/export tool that will work in your particular circumstances, it's possible to write plain SQL SELECT queries that will generate SQL INSERT statements. In this way it's possible to "export" all your data to a script file that can be run against the destination database. It's kind of an ugly hack, but it's simple and it works if you don't have a lot of data to move. See my answer to this question for details: Export SQL Server 2005 query result to SQL INSERT statement?
Note that this method assumes that the destination table already exists. But it's pretty straightforward to generate table creation scripts, as J Cory's answer has already shown.
There's a command line tool available to dump your data from particular tables into a SQL script that be executed against a different database:
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/11/16/sql-server-2005-generate-script-with-data-from-database-database-publishing-wizard/
I don't believe SQL Management Studio Express supports data scripting (as your screenshot on J Cory's answer shows), but the full version does support that feature. In either case, the command line tool should accomplish what you need.
When I right click on the database I want to export data from, I only get to select a single table or view, rather than being able to export all of the data. Is there a way to export all of the data?
If this is not possible, could you advise on how I could do the following:
I have two databases, with the same table names, but one has more data than the other
They both have different database names (Table names are identical)
They are both on different servers
I need to get all of the additional data from the larger database, into the smaller database.
Both are MS SQL databases
Being that both are MS SQL Servers, on different hosts... why bother with CSV when you can setup a Linked Server instance so you can access one instance from the other via a SQL statement?
Make sure you have a valid user on the instance you want to retrieve data from - it must have access to the table(s)
Create the Linked Server instance
Reference the name in queries using four name syntax:
INSERT INTO db1.dbo.SmallerTable
SELECT *
FROM linked_server.db.dbo.LargerTable lt
WHERE NOT EXISTS(SELECT NULL
FROM db1.dbo.SmallerTable st
WHERE st.col = lt.col)
Replace WHERE st.col = lt.col with whatever criteria you consider to be duplicate values between the two tables.
There is also a very good tool by Redgate software that syncs data between two databases.
I've also used SQL scripter before to generate a SQL file with insert statements that you can run on the other database to insert the data.
If you right-click on the database, under the Tasks menu, you can use the Generate Scripts option to produce SQL scripts for all the tables and data. See this blog post for details. If you want to sync the second database with the first, then you're better off using something like Redgate as suggested in mpenrow's answer.
i want to extract specific database tables & stored procedures into one master script. Do you know any software that can help me do this faster? I've tried using the SQL Database publishing tool, but it's not that efficient since its gathering tables that I didn't select.
In SQL Server 2005, right click on the database, then select Tasks, and then select Generate Scripts.
Generating SQL Scripts in SQL Server 2005
As mentioned in that link, I'm fairly sure you have to generate the DROP and CREATE statements separately.
Try DBSourceTools. http://dbsourcetools.codeplex.com
Its open source, and specifically designed to script databases - tables, views, procs to disk.
It also allows you to select which tables, views, db-objects to script.
I use Redgate SQL compare for this (by comparing to an empty DB), as well as for doing upgrades between all my DB versions (I save a copy of the DB for each released version, and then just do a compare between current and previous to get a change script for that version).
I have found the "Generate Scripts" does a bad job in some cases with dependencies - eg, it will try to create a stored procedure that uses a table before the table is created, causing the script to fail. I'll accept I'm possibly using it wrong, but SQL Compare "just works". The scripts it generates are also enclosed in a transaction -- so if something fails, the whole change is rolled back. You don't end up with a half-populated or half-upgraded database.
Downside is that this is a commercial tool, but IMHO worth the money.