Useful system stored procedures in SQL Server

Question

I recently discovered that I could use the sp_help to get a table definition and have been hooked onto it since then. Before my discovery, I had to open up the Object explorer in SQL Management studio, manually search for the table name, right click on the table and select Design. That was a lot of effort!

What other system stored procedures do you all use that you can't simply live without?

Answer 1

sp_who/sp_who2 - lets you know who is doing what on the server.

Answer 2

Alt + F1 is a good shortcut key for sp_help :)

sp_helptext is another goodie for getting stored proc text..

Answer 3

• sp_who
• sp_who2

• sp_helptext

• list of useful system stored procedures

Answer 4

All of these undocumented ones

xp_getnetname

xp_fileexist

xp_dirtree

xp_subdirs

sp_who2

xp_getfiledetails

xp_fixeddrives

Sp_tempdbspace

xp_enumdsn

xp_enumerrorlogs

sp_MSforeachtable

sp_MSforeachDB

See here: Undocumented stored procedures

And now since SQl Server 2005 all the Dynamic Management Views like sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats

Answer 5

sp_spaceused, you can use it to determine the size of a table or the entire database. If you pass the table name, it returns the space used for that table, when called with no argument it gives the space of the database

Answer 6

Select * From sysobjects where xtype='U' order by Name

Gives a list of all user-defined tables in a database.

Answer 7

sp_rename

for renaming database objects (tables, columns, indexes, etc.)

Answer 8

sp_ helpindex [table] - shows you index info (same info as sp_help)

sp_helpconstraint [table] - shows you primary/foreign key/defaults and other constraints *

sp_depends [obj] - shows dependencies of an object, for example:

sp_depends [table] - shows you what stored procs, views, triggers, UDF affect this table

sp_depends [sproc] - shows what tables etc are affected/used by this stored proc

Answer 9

master.dbo.xp_cmdshell

I can't list the number of times I didn't have RDP access to a box but did have a SQL login with sufficient permissions to execute that in order to run shell commands on it.

Answer 10

highlight any proc or other system object name in your query editor and hit shift-f1 to get help for that word.