How to easily copy SQL Statements from multiple extended events like I used to do in SQL Profiler?

Question

One thing I miss from using SQL Profiler is selecting multiple rows in profiler (looking at Batch Completed and RPC Completed events) and seeing all the SQL in the below panel, i.e. as one combined text field with all the SQL statements. I could copy it all and paste into SQL Management Studio and work on it there. Is there an easy way to do similarly with Extended Events?

When I do an extended events session, e.g. using XEvent Profiler > Standard, it's a much less friendly UX to get all the SQL Statements generated. I have to double-click on each one, click the Copy All button on the popup, close that popup, then double-click on the next row. I could right-click on the row and choose Copy > Cell but that doesn't preserve line breaks in the copied text. If I've got more than a few events this isn't fun.

Am I missing something? How does everyone else use Extended Events without becoming super frustrated with the UX? I'm such an occasional user of it I've put off learning all the ins and outs of scripting event sessions and doing clever things with the results.

Answer 1

There is a way to move the fields from the detail page down below, up to the grid above. Once it's in the grid, you can sort, filter, group, export, pretty much anything you want.

There are a couple of ways to do this. One is, right click on the field in the bottom pain. In the context menu, select "Show column in table". That will move it up to the top where you can control things from there. Second method is to look at the tool bar for the Data Explorer window. There's a button there, near the far right side by default, labeled "Choose Columns...". Selecting that will open a window showing all the fields for the events currently captured. You can pick which ones you want in the upper table.

From there, it's just a question of using the table functions. Look again to the toolbar for all the stuff I mentioned above. For more details, here is a video I did for GroupBy. There is a whole bunch of other stuff at my blog on this topic.