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 ...
Get Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
