Find Specific word or phrase from all stored procedure, views, and triggers available in SQL Server 2005/2008

We may require sometime to find specific TableName or some words or some phrase have been used in any SP, Triggers or in VIEW. This is interesting to know how we can do it with T-SQL rather than manually checking script of everything.

Before I move forward to my original script, let me give you some basic logic behind that. Actually SYSObjects contains Name, ID along with many useful information of objects like stored procedure, view, trigger, function, user table, system table etc and SysComments contain ID of objects along with Text which has been used to create that object. So, now it may have popped up in your mind that I must have joined these two system views.

Before I show you the script I also would like to introduce you with the possible values could be used in “XType” column of “SysObjects” as that is the base and you can decide what to look (SP, Triggers, Views or anything else)

Here are some of the values of “Xtype” column and its meaning.

C = CHECK constraint
D = Default or DEFAULT constraint
F = FOREIGN KEY constraint
L = Log
P = Stored procedure
PK = PRIMARY KEY constraint (type is K)
RF = Replication filter stored procedure
S = System table
TR = Trigger
U = User table
UQ = UNIQUE constraint (type is K)
V = View
X = Extended stored procedure

So now you are all set to look at the script, have a look at it.

--display the list of any trigger, view and stored procedure which has used 'SY' in the script

SELECT DISTINCT so.name,sc.text

FROM syscomments sc

INNER JOIN sysobjects so ON sc.id=so.id

WHERE so.xtype in ('P','TR','V') and sc.TEXT LIKE '%sy%'

order by name

 

Reference: Ritesh Shah
http://www.sqlhub.com
Note: Microsoft Books online is a default reference of all articles but examples and explanations prepared by Ritesh Shah, founder of http://www.SQLHub.com