Find references to other databases

Question

In a SQL Server database I need to find all stored procedures and views containing references to other databases. (I'm required to replace them with synonyms.)

I have many stored procedures and I do not want to search them manually.

Any ideas how to find them easily?

Answer 1

Depending on the version of SQL Server, you might also find value in this query:

SELECT OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(referencing_id), OBJECT_NAME(referencing_id) 
  FROM sys.sql_expression_dependencies
  WHERE referenced_database_name = 'YourDatabaseName';

In reality you'll need a combination of searching the views and procedures (as @M_M pointed out), this, and you'll potentially need to weed some out. For example sys.sql_modules will show false positives if your database name is a string that could appear naturally in your modules for other reasons. But this answer won't find the database name when it's embedded in dynamic SQL, for example.