SQL Server Management Studio - using multiple filters in table list?

Question

In Management Studio, you can right click on the tables group to create a filter for the table list. Has anyone figured out a way to include multiple tables in the filter? For example, I'd like all tables with "br_*" and "tbl_*" to show up.

Anyone know how to do this?

Thanks

Answer 1

no, you can't do this. When we first got management studio I've tried every possible combination of everything you could think of: _, %, *, ", ', &&, &, and, or, |, ||, etc...

Answer 2

At first it looks like it could use a CONTAINS query (e.g. ' "br_*" OR "tbl_*" ' ), but it doesn't seem to. It seems to only support a value that is then passed into a LIKE clause (e.g. 'app' becomes '%app%').

Answer 3

You might be able to roll your own addon to SMSS that would allow you to do what you are looking for:

The Black Art of Writing a SQL Server Management Studio 2005 Add-In

Extend Functionality in SQL Server 2005 Management Studio with Add-ins

The first one is specifically for searching and displaying all schema objects with a given name so you might be able to expand upon that for what you are looking for.

Answer 4

I've used Toad for SQL Server (freeware version) which has very nice filtering options.