SQL Server MVP Deep Dives- P14: Each year Microsoft invites all the MVPs from every technology and country to Redmond for an MVP Summit—all top secret—“don’t tweet what you see!” During the MVP Summit, each product team holds a series of presentations where they explain their technologies, share their vision, and listen to some honest feedback. | 476 Chapter 36 Understated changes in SQL Server 2005 replication Reading the text of hidden replication stored procedures Consider the case when you need to examine the text of a replication system stored procedure. You might want to see this text for several reasons. Perhaps you want to perform the same actions as the SQL Server Management Studio SSMS GUI but hope to gain programmatic control of the process for yourself. Perhaps you want to get a better understanding of what happens under the hood in order to increase your replication expertise and troubleshooting ability. Whatever the reason usually you will need to know the name of the system stored procedure and then use sp_helptext or the OBJECT_DEFINITION function to see the whole procedure definition. For some of the replication stored procedures though you will find that the text is hidden and these two methods will not work. For example if you try the following code in a normal query window you will have NULL returned SELECT OBJECT_DEFINITION OBJECT_id On the other hand if you use the dedicated administrator connection DAC you will be able to access the underlying text of the procedure. The process is pretty straightforward and is shown here 1 Enable remote access to the DAC sp_configure remote admin connections 1 GO RECONFIGURE GO 2 Connect to the server using the DAC. Use a query window to connect to yourservername by using ADMIN your-servername in the server name section or use the sqlcmd command-prompt utility with the -A switch . 3 Execute the script SELECT OBJECT_DEFINITION OBJECT_id You should find the procedure text returned as expected and if you are on a production system don t forget to close the DAC connection when you are done with it Creating snapshots without any data only the schema When we look in BOL at the definition of a replication stored procedure or a replication agent we find that the permitted values for the .
