New Add-on for SSMS: T-SQL Flex

Do you ever copy query results out of SQL Server Management Studio, paste them into your text editor, and then perform gold-medal find + replace gymnastics to create T-SQL scripts?

Do you ever need to copy a small amount of data from one SQL server to another, but don’t want to set up a linked server or take the time to create an SSIS package?

Do you ever need to create simple Excel sheets from SQL Server queries – preferably one tab per query result and with valid formatting (such as showing dates correctly and not truncating leading zeros)?

Have you ever wanted to quickly script a temp table that has the exact schema (including nullability and precision) of a query, stored procedure, or table-valued function?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, there is a new add-on available for SQL Server Management Studio that you may like called T-SQL Flex.

T-SQL Flex is a free, open-source add-on for SQL Server Management Studio that does only two things:

1. It scripts SQL query results to INSERT statements.
2. It scripts SQL query results to Excel-compatible spreadsheets (specifically, XML Spreadsheet 2003 format).

Because T-SQL Flex does only these two things, it is very easy to use.  Simply paste in your query and click the “Run ‘n’ Rollback” button.  T-SQL Flex will create an ADO.NET transaction, run your query, collect the results, and then roll back the transaction.

You can check out the latest release here:

https://github.com/nycdotnet/TSqlFlex/releases

If you like T-SQL Flex, please let Steve know on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/nycdotnet

Thanks to the team at Red-Gate that created the SIP framework used by T-SQL Flex.

Happy scripting!

SQL in the City - New York 2012

I was able to attend the SQL in the City event in New York this past Friday.  I highly recommend that anyone who can spare the time and travel should attend the next SQL in the City day in your area.  I found it to be a very well put-together event with useful content and excellent networking opportunities.

At the event I was able to meet both Steve Jones (who compassionately shook my hand as I walked in dripping wet from the rain during my walk over to 3rd Avenue) and Grant Fritchey (Scary DBA).  It was great to have even a brief conversation with each of them and introduce myself.  I also got to meet Product Manager David Atkinson and Developer David Simner and talk briefly about the awesome SQL Source Control and SQL Compare products.  The presentations I attended, "Database Maintenance Essentials", "Red Gate Tools - the Complete Lifecycle", and "The Whys and Hows of Database Continuous Integration" were all very informative and useful.

The highlight of the day was finding out about Red-Gate's Virtual Restore product.  This tool essentially allows you to mount a .BAK file as a database.  It supports multiple databases mounted from the same .BAK file, and it is not destructive to the .BAK file.  From the description, it works very similarly to VMs that are mounted from a disk file and then store changes in a disk "diff" file.  This tool allows you to save both space and time and sounds very awesome for developers.

I must say that I think Red-Gate has made a critical error with the marketing of this tool.  Developers hear "restore" and think "DBA tool"; in fact I think that's what the Red-Gate marketing team thought too as this application is included in their DBA bundle only.  I would absolutely use this tool as a developer and I might even use it as often as I use things like SQL Compare and the rest of the more developer-oriented tools.  It's a game-changer, and I hope Red-Gate figures out that they're doing a very bad job of marketing this product and could probably be making a lot more money from it by just getting the word out that it's not only a DBA tool.  For most of the other Red-Gate developer tools, a savvy developer could imagine cooking-up some sort of "good enough" workaround to not have to buy it (though certainly not in a shorter time than the reasonable expense for the license), but I would never even attempt creating something like Virtual Restore.  I will absolutely be trying out this software later this week.  Red-Gate - you've got to get the word out, even think about changing the name or something!!!

Thanks very much to everyone at Red-Gate for putting this event together.  I hope to see you again at the next SQL in the City.