Data Engineering

Automated SQL Server 2000 Data Dictionary

Posted on 17th February 20062nd April 2020 by Sacha Tomey

17
Feb

The two stored procedures below will help with automating the generation and maintenance of a database data dictionary.

If you provide a description for each database field in a SQL Database, these stored procedures can be used to extract that description information together with some other useful column details.

The first stored proc simply details the column information for a single table:

CREATE PROCEDURE uxp_Table_Data_Dictionary
@Table_Name varchar(50)
AS

— Extract the table data dictionary

SELECT

TABLE_NAME,
ORDINAL_POSITION,
COLUMN_NAME,
CASE DATA_TYPE
WHEN ‘varchar’ THEN ‘varchar(‘+CAST(CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH AS VARCHAR(20))+’)’
ELSE DATA_TYPE
END AS DATA_TYPE,
ISNULL(COLUMN_DEFAULT, ”) AS COLUMN_DEFAULT,
IS_NULLABLE,
value AS PROPERTY_VALUE

FROM
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS AS info
JOIN ::fn_listextendedproperty (NULL, ‘user’, ‘dbo’, ‘table’, @Table_Name, ‘column’, default) AS extended ON info.COLUMN_NAME = extended.objname

WHERE

TABLE_NAME = @Table_Name

The second stored procedure extends this a little and reports the column information for all user tables within the current database:

CREATE PROCEDURE uxp_System_Data_Dictionary
AS

    — Create a cursor containing all user tables

    DECLARE @tableName varchar(40)

    DECLARE table_cursor CURSOR FOR

    SELECT name FROM sysobjects WHERE type = ‘U’ AND name <> ‘dtproperties’

    OPEN table_cursor

    — Perform the first fetch.

    FETCH NEXT FROM table_cursor INTO @tableName

    — Check @@FETCH_STATUS to see if there are any more rows to fetch.

    WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

    BEGIN

        — Execute the table data dictionary generator

        EXEC uxp_Table_Data_Dictionary @tableName

        — Fetch the next table

        FETCH NEXT FROM table_cursor INTO @tableName
END

    — Tidy Up
CLOSE table_cursor
DEALLOCATE table_cursor