How can foreign key constraints be temporarily disabled using T-SQL?

Question

Are disabling and enabling foreign key constraints supported in SQL Server? Or is my only option to drop and then re-create

Answer 1

You can temporarily disable constraints on your tables, do work, then rebuild them.

Here is an easy way to do it...

Disable all indexes, including the primary keys, which will disable all foreign keys, then re-enable just the primary keys so you can work with them...

DECLARE @sql AS NVARCHAR(max)=''
select @sql = @sql +
    'ALTER INDEX ALL ON [' + t.[name] + '] DISABLE;'+CHAR(13)
from  
    sys.tables t
where type='u'

select @sql = @sql +
    'ALTER INDEX ' + i.[name] + ' ON [' + t.[name] + '] REBUILD;'+CHAR(13)
from  
    sys.key_constraints i
join
    sys.tables t on i.parent_object_id=t.object_id
where
    i.type='PK'


exec dbo.sp_executesql @sql;
go

[Do something, like loading data]

Then re-enable and rebuild the indexes...

DECLARE @sql AS NVARCHAR(max)=''
select @sql = @sql +
    'ALTER INDEX ALL ON [' + t.[name] + '] REBUILD;'+CHAR(13)
from  
    sys.tables t
where type='u'

exec dbo.sp_executesql @sql;
go