TSQL Tip O’ the Week – 6/28/11 – SP_HELPTEXT

This weeks tip:

What’s the fastest animal on earth?  The Cheetah.

What’s the fastest way to get a definition of a unencrypted stored procedure?  Use SP_HELPTEXT

If you don’t know, SP_HELPTEXT returns, in the results pane (use ALT+T to put the results to text), the TSQL of the following:

• unencrypted stored procedure
• view
• trigger
• user-defined function
• user-defined rule
• default
• computed column
• CHECK constraint
• system object

Here’s an example from the AdventureWorks database…..

SP_HELPTEXT uspGetBillOfMaterials

Here are some related posts from the intraweb:

• I found an article from Jason Strate here: I don’t Want To Use the Object Browser (sp_helptext)
• A couple good alternatives from Belle’s SQL Musings here: How to Get Definition for Stored Procedures, UDFs and Triggers using T-SQL

Previous Tips O’ the Week

• TSQL Tip O’ the Week – 6/21/11 – Copy a Table Structure
• TSQL Tip O’ the Week – 6/14/11 – The Empty GUID
• TSQL Tip O’ the Week – 6/6/11 – Declare and Assign Variables