SQL Output contents of a table to string

Question

I have a table that contains many rows of SQL commands that make up a single SQL statement (to which I am grateful for this answer, step 5 here)

I have followed the example in this answer and now have a table of SQL - each row is a line of SQL that build a query. I can copy and paste the contents of this table into a new query window and get the results however due to my lack of SQL knowledge I am not sure how I go about copying the contents of the table into a string variable which I can then execute.

Edit: The SQL statement in my table comprises of 1 row per each line of the statement i.e.

Row1: SELECT * FROM myTable
Row2: WHERE
Row3: col = @value

This statement if copied into a VARCHAR(MAX) exceeds the MAX limit.

I look forward to your replies. in the mean time I will try myself.

Thank you

Answer 1

You can use coalesce to concatenate the contents of a column into a string, e.g.

create table foo (sql varchar (max));

insert foo (sql) values ('select name from sys.objects')
insert foo (sql) values ('select name from sys.indexes')

declare @sql_output varchar (max)
set @sql_output = ''       -- NULL + '' = NULL, so we need to have a seed
select @sql_output =       -- string to avoid losing the first line.
       coalesce (@sql_output + sql + char (10), '')
  from foo

print @sql_output

Note: untested, just off the top of my head, but a working example of this should produce the following output:

select name from sys.objects
select name from sys.indexes

You can then execute the contents of the string with exec (@sql_output) or sp_executesql.