Using Environment variables in T-SQL

Question

How can I read the value of a system environment variable in a T-SQL script?

This is to run on SQL Server 2005.

Answer 1

xp_cmdshell is generally best avoided for security reasons.

You're better off using a CLR assembly. Here's a good introduction to creating a CLR assembly.

You can use System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable() in C# - you'll find more info on how to do that here.