Search of table names

Question

I use the following to search for strings in my stored procedures:

use DBname
SELECT Name
FROM sys.procedures
WHERE OBJECT_DEFINITION(OBJECT_ID) LIKE \'%xxx%\'
<         


        

Answer 1

you can also use the show command.

show tables like '%tableName%'

Answer 2

Adding on to @[RichardTheKiwi]'s answer.

Whenever I search for a list of tables, in general I want to select from all of them or delete them. Below is a script that generates those scripts for you.

The generated select script also adds a tableName column so you know what table you're looking at:

select 'select ''' + name + ''' as TableName, * from ' + name as SelectTable,
'delete from ' + name as DeleteTable
from sys.tables
where name like '%xxxx%'
and is_ms_shipped = 0; 

Answer 3

If you want to look in all tables in all Databases server-wide and get output you can make use of the undocumented sp_MSforeachdb procedure:

sp_MSforeachdb 'SELECT "?" AS DB, * FROM [?].sys.tables WHERE name like ''%Table_Names%'''