Working with the Registry

Question

Working with the Registry

Dinesh Asanka

SSChampion

Points: 11058
More actions
March 21, 2004 at 6:34 am

#82344

Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/dasanka/w

My Blog: http://dineshasanka.spaces.live.com/

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply

msurasky Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 595 More actions · Answer 1

Great article Dinesh!

I agree with you that accessing registry keys from SQL Server scripts/stored procedures is not something that you will do often, but is great to know that you actually "can" do it if you want.

I think that maybe this extended stored procedures can be useful as a good alternative to logged operations (compared to logging in the event log or somewhere else) or to keep configuration information in the registry (buffer size for cursors, type of locking, or whatever you can think of) by pointing your sp's to read to a particular registry. Then, if you want to try your sp's with different configurations you don't have to modify all of them, simply change that registry key...

Other ideas would be to keep on the registry the name of files where your stored procedures will write debugging information. Then, if you decide to move your debugging files somewhere else, just change the registry.

The Isn't weird?... you can even change the desktop background from a stored procedure!.. the limits of the registry key are endless if you know how to use it...

Thanks!

samm2425 SSC Veteran Points: 209 More actions · Answer 2

awesome article

gr8 way for getting values out of the registry.

Thanks.

Dinesh Asanka SSChampion Points: 11058 More actions · Answer 3

Thankx all .but credit should also goes to Frank Kalis as well.

My Blog: http://dineshasanka.spaces.live.com/

Frank Kalis SSC Guru Points: 111183 More actions · Answer 4

Thanks Dinesh!

There is just one thing I like to add.

All of these procedures are undocumented and subject to change anytime at Microsoft's will. I would really carefully think about this BEFORE writing production code with these procedures.

Nonetheless I agree it's good to know that there is a way, but then again there are also many other ways. I would prefer doing this in the application layer.

--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]

Dinesh Asanka SSChampion Points: 11058 More actions · Answer 5

Yes Frank,

I fully agree with you.

Yes I has to be used as the LAST OPTION. Sorry I didn't mention that in my article.

My Blog: http://dineshasanka.spaces.live.com/

Frank Kalis SSC Guru Points: 111183 More actions · Answer 6

Please don't get me wrong. My reply wasn't meant to be criticism, but rather calling attention on this nasty side-effect of using something undocumented.

--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]

Dinesh Asanka SSChampion Points: 11058 More actions · Answer 7

No Frank. It is no criticism but it is a fact

My Blog: http://dineshasanka.spaces.live.com/

Dinesh Asanka SSChampion Points: 11058 More actions · Answer 8

Thankx all for your comments which help me lot

My Blog: http://dineshasanka.spaces.live.com/

JT Lovell Ten Centuries Points: 1188 More actions · Answer 9

Great article, thanks for sharing it! It's probably important to point out that it is the server's registry that is being used, rather than the client's.

Ramesh Saive SSC-Insane Points: 24275 More actions · Answer 10

Its a great article and thanks for sharing it...

I wonder, is there's any way of knowing the existence of a key before reading it?

--Ramesh