During the last few years I've worked extensively with transactional replication and have written a handful of scripts that have found a permanent home in my "useful scripts" toolbox. I've provided these scripts as downloads whenever I've presented about replication...but not everyone who has worked with replication has been to one of my presentations (or had access to the downloads afterwards) so I'm posting them here.

The first script in my toolbox shows all of the articles and columns in each article for all transactional publications in a published database. It's pretty straightforward - just execute the script in the published database on the publisher. Note that because it uses the FOR XML PATH directive it must be run on SQL 2005 or higher.

Here's the script:

/********************************************************************************************* 

Transactional Replication Toolbox: Show Articles and Columns for All Publications 


Description: 

   Shows articles and columns for each article for all transactional publications 


   (C) 2013, Kendal Van Dyke (mailto:kendal.vandyke@gmail.com) 


Version History: 

   v1.00 (2013-01-29) 


License: 

   This query is free to download and use for personal, educational, and internal 

   corporate purposes, provided that this header is preserved. Redistribution or sale 

   of this query, in whole or in part, is prohibited without the author's express 

   written consent. 


Note: 

   Execute this query in the published database on the PUBLISHER 


   Because this query uses FOR XML PATH('') it requires SQL 2005 or higher 


*********************************************************************************************/ 


SELECTsyspublications.name AS "Publication" ,

sysarticles.name AS "Article" ,

STUFF((

SELECT', ' + syscolumns.name AS [text()]

FROMsysarticlecolumns WITH (NOLOCK)

INNER JOIN syscolumns WITH (NOLOCK) ON sysarticlecolumns.colid = syscolumns.colorder

WHEREsysarticlecolumns.artid = sysarticles.artid

AND sysarticles.objid = syscolumns.id

ORDER BY syscolumns.colorder

FOR

XMLPATH('')

), 1, 2, '') AS "Columns"

FROMsyspublications WITH (NOLOCK)

INNER JOIN sysarticles WITH (NOLOCK) ON syspublications.pubid = sysarticles.pubid

ORDER BY syspublications.name ,

sysarticles.name;