Find all stored procedures that reference a specific column in some table

Question

I have a value in a table that was changed unexpectedly. The column in question is CreatedDate: this is set when my item is created, but it\'s being changed by a st

Answer 1

You can use the system views contained in information_schema to search in tables, views and (unencrypted) stored procedures with one script. I developed such a script some time ago because I needed to search for field names everywhere in the database.

The script below first lists the tables/views containing the column name you're searching for, and then the stored procedures source code where the column is found. It displays the result in one table distinguishing "BASE TABLE", "VIEW" and "PROCEDURE", and (optionally) the source code in a second table:

DECLARE @SearchFor nvarchar(max)='%CustomerID%' -- search for this string
DECLARE @SearchSP bit = 1 -- 1=search in SPs as well
DECLARE @DisplaySPSource bit = 1 -- 1=display SP source code

-- tables
if (@SearchSP=1) begin  
  (
  select '['+c.table_Schema+'].['+c.table_Name+'].['+c.column_name+']' [schema_object], 
            t.table_type 
  from information_schema.columns c
  left join information_schema.Tables t on c.table_name=t.table_name
  where column_name like @SearchFor 
  union
  select '['+routine_Schema+'].['+routine_Name+']' [schema_object], 
         'PROCEDURE' as table_type from information_schema.routines
  where routine_definition like @SearchFor
        and routine_type='procedure'
  )
  order by table_type, schema_object
end else begin
  select '['+c.table_Schema+'].['+c.table_Name+'].['+c.column_name+']' [schema_object], 
         t.table_type 
  from information_schema.columns c
  left join information_schema.Tables t on c.table_name=t.table_name
  where column_name like @SearchFor 
  order by c.table_Name, c.column_name
end     
-- stored procedure (source listing)
if (@SearchSP=1) begin      
    if (@DisplaySPSource=1) begin
      select '['+routine_Schema+'].['+routine_Name+']' [schema.sp], routine_definition 
      from information_schema.routines
      where routine_definition like @SearchFor
      and routine_type='procedure'
      order by routine_name
    end
end

If you run the query, use the "result as text" option - then you can use "find" to locate the search text in the result set (useful for long source code).

Note that you can set @DisplaySPSource to 0 if you just want to display the SP names, and if you're just looking for tables/views, but not for SPs, you can set @SearchSP to 0.

Example result (find CustomerID in the Northwind database, results displayed via LinqPad):

Note that I've verfied this script with a test view dbo.TestOrders and it found the CustomerID in this view even though c.* was used in the SELECT statement (referenced table Customers contains the CustomerIDand hence the view is showing this column).

---

Note for LinqPad users: In C#, you can use dc.ExecuteQueryDynamic(sqlQueryStr, new object[] {... parameters ...} ).Dump(); and have the parameters as @p0 ... @pn inside the query string. Then you can write a static extension class and save it under My Extensions to be used in your LinqPad queries. The data context can be passed from the query window as DataContextBase dc via parameter, i.e. public static void SearchDialog(this DataContextBase dc, string searchString = "%") inside a public static extension class (in LinqPad 6, it is DataContext). Then you can rewrite the SQL query above as a string with parameters and invoke it from the C# context.