How to search all text fields in a DB for some substring with T-SQL

Question

I have a huge schema, with several hundreds of tables and several thousands of columns. I\'d know that a specific IP address is stored in this database in several places, b

Answer 1

You'r close. Compare yours with this example: Searching and finding a string value in all columns in a SQL Server table

The above link is for searching a single table, however here is another link which includes all tables: How to search all columns of all tables in a database for a keyword?

EDIT : Just in case the link ever goes bad, here's the solution from that link...

CREATE PROC SearchAllTables
(
    @SearchStr nvarchar(100)
)
AS
BEGIN

    -- Copyright © 2002 Narayana Vyas Kondreddi. All rights reserved.
    -- Purpose: To search all columns of all tables for a given search string
    -- Written by: Narayana Vyas Kondreddi
    -- Site: http://vyaskn.tripod.com
    -- Tested on: SQL Server 7.0 and SQL Server 2000
    -- Date modified: 28th July 2002 22:50 GMT


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

    SET NOCOUNT ON

DECLARE @TableName nvarchar(256), @ColumnName nvarchar(128), @SearchStr2 nvarchar(110)
    SET  @TableName = ''
    SET @SearchStr2 = QUOTENAME('%' + @SearchStr + '%','''')

    WHILE @TableName IS NOT NULL
    BEGIN
        SET @ColumnName = ''
        SET @TableName = 
        (
            SELECT MIN(QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME))
            FROM    INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
            WHERE       TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'
                AND QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME) > @TableName
                AND OBJECTPROPERTY(
                        OBJECT_ID(
                            QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME)
                             ), 'IsMSShipped'
                               ) = 0
        )

        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 
    END

    SELECT ColumnName, ColumnValue FROM #Results
END


EXEC SearchAllTables '<yourSubstringHere>'

Note: As the comment suggests in the code snippet, it was tested using older versions of SQL Server. This may not work on SQL Server 2012.

Answer 2

try this It will not give you the error of limit exceed 32

alter PROC SearchAllTables
(
    @SearchStr nvarchar(100)
)
AS
BEGIN



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

    SET NOCOUNT ON

    DECLARE @TableName nvarchar(256), @ColumnName nvarchar(128), @SearchStr2 nvarchar(110)
    SET  @TableName = ''
    SET @SearchStr2 = QUOTENAME('%' + @SearchStr + '%','''')

    WHILE @TableName IS NOT NULL
    BEGIN
        SET @ColumnName = ''
        SET @TableName = 
        (
            SELECT MIN(QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME))
            FROM    INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
            WHERE       TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'
                AND QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME) > @TableName
                AND OBJECTPROPERTY(
                        OBJECT_ID(
                            QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME)
                             ), 'IsMSShipped'
                               ) = 0
        )

        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 
    END

    SELECT ColumnName, ColumnValue FROM #Results
END

Hope it helps

Answer 3

The chosen answer is brilliant, but I found when using it repeatedly the results were erroneous, so I added some clean up to make it re-runnable with accurate results:

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE type = 'P' AND name = 'SearchAllTables')
    DROP PROC SearchAllTables
GO

CREATE PROC SearchAllTables
(
    @SearchStr nvarchar(100)
)
AS
BEGIN

    -- Copyright © 2002 Narayana Vyas Kondreddi. All rights reserved.
    -- Purpose: To search all columns of all tables for a given search string
    -- Written by: Narayana Vyas Kondreddi
    -- Slightly modified by: Natalie Ford, 6/10/15
    -- Site: http://vyaskn.tripod.com
    -- Tested on: SQL Server 7.0 and SQL Server 2000
    -- Date modified: 28th July 2002 22:50 GMT

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

    SET NOCOUNT ON

    TRUNCATE Table #Results

DECLARE @TableName nvarchar(256), @ColumnName nvarchar(128), @SearchStr2 nvarchar(110)
    SET  @TableName = ''
    SET @SearchStr2 = QUOTENAME('%' + @SearchStr + '%','''')

    WHILE @TableName IS NOT NULL
    BEGIN
        SET @ColumnName = ''
        SET @TableName = 
        (
            SELECT MIN(QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME))
            FROM    INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
            WHERE       TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'
                AND QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME) > @TableName
                AND OBJECTPROPERTY(
                        OBJECT_ID(
                            QUOTENAME(TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(TABLE_NAME)
                             ), 'IsMSShipped'
                               ) = 0
        )

        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 
    END

    SELECT ColumnName, ColumnValue FROM #Results

    DROP TABLE #Results
END