Separating SQL script files generated by Microsoft SQL (by type)

There’s one great feature in SQL: the “Generate Scripts” command. Unfortunately, it has one limitation: the default filenames of scripts look something like this:

dbo.fnc_PlayerValue.UserDefinedFunction.sql
dbo.UserSelect.StoredProcedure.sql

I’d much prefer the filenames to match the object name, without the owner (‘dbo’) or object type. In other words, I’d prefer the above two files to look like this:

UserDefinedFunction\fnc_PlayerValue.sql
StoredProcedure\UserSelect.sql

How do we get from point A to point B without a lot of manual file copies and renames? We use the FOR command!

First, create a subdirectory for each object type (Table, StoredProcedure, UserDefinedFunction, View, Schema, Trigger, and User), then run the following from a command prompt.

for %i in (*.User.sql) do for /f "delims=., tokens=1-3" %j in ("%i") do move %i %k\%j.%l
for %i in (*.Schema.sql) do for /f "delims=., tokens=1-3" %j in ("%i") do move %i %k\%j.%l
for %i in (*.Trigger.sql) do for /f "delims=., tokens=1-3" %j in ("%i") do move %i %k\%j.%l
for %i in (*.sql) do for /f "delims=., tokens=1-4" %j in ("%i") do move %i %l\%k.%m

The command above will look for each file with a *.sql extension in the current directory. For each of those files, it copies it to a directory based on the type of file, and ensures the new file only includes the object name and the .sql extension. So much cleaner now!

Note that this will not work if any folder in the full path to the SQL files has a period in it!

Updated 2009.11.10 to support Trigger, User, and Schema scripts.