So you have many databases, objects, etc. and you want to massively administer it right?
" that allow you to massively perform changes on all databases and tables within a SQL Server instance.
But isn't it handier to generate dynamic T-SQL for doing that? I believe it is!
in SQL Server 2005 or later you can easily do that.
The idea is to use a basic SELECT statement and then dynamically build the T-SQL expression that eventually will generate the desired T-SQL code.
Here are some examples (before running the code, right-click in the query window, then select "Results To" and finally "Results to Text"):
'ALTER SCHEMA [NEW_SCHEMA_NAME] TRANSFER ' + s.Name + '.' + t.Name FROM sys.Tables t INNER JOIN
sys.Schemas s on t.schema_id = s.schema_id WHERE s.Name = ['OLD_SCHEMA_NAME']
Example 3: Change the schema owner for all stored procedures within a database
SELECT
'ALTER SCHEMA [NEW_SCHEMA_NAME] TRANSFER ' + s.Name + '.' + sp.Name FROM sys.Procedures sp INNER JOIN
sys.Schemas s on sp.schema_id = s.schema_id WHERE s.Name = ['OLD_SCHEMA_NAME']
Example 4: See all the views for each database
SELECT
'USE '+ s.name +';'+' SELECT * FROM sys.views' FROM SYS.databases s
Example 5: Change the compatibility level for all the databases to 100 (SQL Server 2008)
SELECT
'ALTER DATABASE '+ name + ' SET COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL = 100' FROM SYS.DATABASES
Example 6: Set all the databases to READ ONLY mode
SELECT
'ALTER DATABASE '+ name + ' SET READ_ONLY WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE' FROM SYS.DATABASES
Example 7: Set all the databases to READ/WRITE mode
SELECT
'ALTER DATABASE '+ name + ' SET READ_WRITE WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE' FROM SYS.DATABASES
... and the list goes on!
When using this technique along with the information retrieved from the catalog views, the possibilities are endless!
Yes, you still need to manually execute each generated T-SQL statement but the good thing is that the statements are being generated dynamically and by manually executing them, you have more control over your SQL Server instance.
I hope this helps!
Until next time!
P.S. The above sample code is intended only for demo purposes. Do not use it on Production systems. Whenever you massively modify database objects you need to be very careful with your data. Always backup your data!