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Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed
book

Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed

by Ray Rankins, Paul Bertucci, Chris Gallelli, Alex T. Silverstein
September 2010
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
1704 pages
111h 8m
English
Sams
Content preview from Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed

Using xp_cmdshell

One of the most useful, and potentially dangerous, extended stored procedures provided with SQL Server 2008 is xp_cmdshell. xp_cmdshell can execute any operating system command or program available on the SQL Server system, as long as it is a console program that doesn’t require user input. xp_cmdshell accepts a varchar(8000) (or nvarchar(4000)) value as the command string to be executed, and it returns the results of the command as a single nvarchar(255) column. The full syntax of xp_cmdshell is as follows:

xp_cmdshell { 'command_string' } [ , no_output ]

If the no_output option is specified, the results from the command are not displayed.

The following example uses xp_cmdshell to list the files in a directory on the SQL Server ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780768696585Purchase book