How can I know which stored procedure or trigger is using a table on SQL Server 2008 R2?

Question

This is the case that in the DB I'm checking, there is an archive table which keeps the user history, and there is a trigger or store procedure that after some time delete rows from this table, in order to avoid the oversize of the same, I didn't design the DB, I'm just taking the maintenance of an application that use this DB, so I don't know the name of these stored procedures or triggers, what I want to do is locate this stored procedure or trigger, check the code and modify it to leave this "user history" longer on the table.

Someone told me to check the "sysobjects" table, where I can actually see something with the same name of the table, but this is the only information I have been able to retrieve, any advise?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Search all code using sys.sql_modules

SELECT OBJECT_NAME(object_id)
FROM sys.sql_modules sm
WHERE definition LIKE '%Mytable%'

Or use Red Gate SQL Search which is completely free

Do not use syscomments or INFORMATION_SCHEMA.RUBBISH

Answer 2

Try out ApexSQL Search

ApexSQL Search is a FREE SQL Server Management Studio and Visual Studio add-in that, among other features, has the View Dependencies feature. The View Dependencies feature has the ability to visualize all SQL database objects’ relationships, including those between encrypted and system objects, SQL server 2012 specific objects, and objects stored in databases encrypted with Transparent Data Encryption (TDE)

The View Dependencies feature also allows you to set up and customize the visual dependencies diagram layout, including the relationships that will be presented, the layout and size of the generated diagram, and the drill-down depth of the dependencies

Disclaimer: I work for ApexSQL as a Support Engineer

Answer 3

For future reference as of 2008 there is also a DMV that can be used. sys.dm_sql_referencing_entities. I generally prefer it to using SQL_Modules as it avoids false positives among other things. I discussed it here but basically if you have a piece of code like this:

SELECT OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(object_id), OBJECT_NAME(object_id) 
FROM sys.sql_modules WHERE [definition] LIKE '%ABC%'

You will end up with results for the table ABC, the table ABCLog the view vw_ABC, the stored procedure sp_Update_ABC etc. Also to the best of my knowledge the DMV will handle encrypted SPs as well as unencrypted while the sql_modules method only works with unencrypted SPs.

The DMV version of the same query is this:

SELECT * FROM sys.dm_sql_referencing_entities('dbo.ABC', 'OBJECT')

Answer 4

Also you can use the sys.sql_expression_dependencies catalog view. Use this query:

SELECT 
referencing_object_name = obj.name, 
referencing_object_type_desc = obj.type_desc, 
referenced_object_name = referenced_entity_name
FROM sys.sql_expression_dependencies sd 
INNER JOIN sys.objects obj 
ON sd.referencing_id = obj.[object_id] 
WHERE referenced_entity_name = 'MyTable'