Search all columns of a table for a value?

Question

I\'ve looked for an answer to this, but all I can find is people asking how to search all columns of ALL tables in a database for a value. I just want to search all columns

Answer 1

I modified this stored proc to take a table name as the second parameter and just search that table for the data:

IF  EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[SearchOneTable]') AND type in (N'P', N'PC'))
DROP PROCEDURE [dbo].[SearchOneTable]
GO

SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

CREATE PROC [dbo].[SearchOneTable]
(
    @SearchStr nvarchar(100) = 'A',
    @TableName nvarchar(256) = 'dbo.Alerts'
)
AS
BEGIN

    CREATE TABLE #Results (ColumnName nvarchar(370), ColumnValue nvarchar(3630))

    --SET NOCOUNT ON

    DECLARE @ColumnName nvarchar(128), @SearchStr2 nvarchar(110)
    SET @SearchStr2 = QUOTENAME('%' + @SearchStr + '%','''')
    --SET @SearchStr2 = QUOTENAME(@SearchStr, '''') --exact match
    SET @ColumnName = ' '


        WHILE (@TableName IS NOT NULL) AND (@ColumnName IS NOT NULL)
        BEGIN
            SET @ColumnName =
            (
                SELECT MIN(QUOTENAME(COLUMN_NAME))
                FROM    INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
                WHERE       TABLE_SCHEMA    = PARSENAME(@TableName, 2)
                    AND TABLE_NAME  = PARSENAME(@TableName, 1)
                    AND DATA_TYPE IN ('char', 'varchar', 'nchar', 'nvarchar')
                    AND QUOTENAME(COLUMN_NAME) > @ColumnName
            )

            IF @ColumnName IS NOT NULL
            BEGIN
                INSERT INTO #Results
                EXEC
                (
                    'SELECT ''' + @TableName + '.' + @ColumnName + ''', LEFT(' + @ColumnName + ', 3630) 
                    FROM ' + @TableName + ' (NOLOCK) ' +
                    ' WHERE ' + @ColumnName + ' LIKE ' + @SearchStr2
                )
            END
        END 
    SELECT ColumnName, ColumnValue FROM #Results
END


GO