SqlTools

An application written in .net 8 and WPF for searching and browsing object scripts on Microsoft SQL Servers.

SqlTools can search by any or all of the following:

• Object Name
• Schema Name
• Object Definition - you can search inside the text of the objects' definitions

After a search is complete, you can further filter (case-insensitive) within the search results:

• Simply type one or more "filter tokens" - words or parts of words separated by text - into the Filter box.
• A logical AND operation will always be applied to all filter tokens
• Or you can also target filter tokens to specific fields within the results grid, ex.:
  • name:jason | filters the results to items where the Name column contains "jason"
  • type:stor | filters the results to items where the Type column contains "stor"
  • db:foo | filters the results to items where the Database column contains "foo"
  • There are at least 1 or 2 others that I cannot remember right now
  • Filter tokens can be negated with "^", e.g. "db:^xyz" will exclude any database whose name contains "xyz."

Can you show me what it looks like?

Yes.

This is the interface for locating objects by searching on the SQL Server:

Clicking the "Script" button obtains the SQL object definition for that object and then displays it to you in this interface:

Why do we need yet another way to view and script objects on MSSQL?

In my daily job I do a lot of prod support work on servers containing dozens of databases, many of which have several thousand objects. I constantly need to find stored procs, views, etc. by name, but most of the time I don't remember the FULL name of the object I'm looking for. To make matters worse, a lot of times I don't even remember which database it's in.

The search interface(s) in SQL Management Studio were always very cumbersome, so most of the time I was running queries like this over and over:

select *
from foo.sys.tables t
where t.name like '%something%'

...so I decided to make an application that would do this for me, with the added benefit of searching across all databases on a server (if desired) as well as also searching within the objects' definitions as well.

I have come across tools that do similar things, but they had one or more of the following problems:

• They were very buggy
• They tried to do too much and didn't have enough focus on just finding stuff
• They were super-expensive

Can you tell me other interesting facts about this thing?

Sure, I've got nothing better to do...

• Supports auth via Windows or SQL login with username/password
• The app's icon is a totally awesome "recliner" because it makes your life so much easier, you'll have more time to relax in your easy chair
• When searching for objects on the server:
  • Allows you to search by object name, schema name and/or within object definition (including tables!)
  • Can search across individual DB's on a server or all of them
  • Searching across all DB's on a server doesn't generally impact the system too much
  • Each query against an individual database is run asynchronously, so searching on a server with a large number of DB's will still happen quickly
  • After you search, you can use somewhat sophisticated filtering techniques to narrow down those results on the client-side
• When viewing object definition scripts
  • Syntax highlighting, mainly thanks to Avalon Edit
  • Has option to canonicalize and reformat the object code using Microsoft.SqlServer.TransactSql.ScriptDom.
    • HOWEVER... this formatting isn't really great at the moment, it needs a lot of refinement.
  • Incremental find within object definition scripts.
• Why is there a donkey that's crossed out in the status bar at the bottom of the window?
  • Because a wacky Guamanian that we worked with kept calling this tool "donkey" for some reason.

Requirements

• .net 4.8 or higher
• Windows 11, but probably Win 10.
  • I doubt it would run on Linux - never needed to try.
• An MS SQL 2008 or higher database... probably.
  • This tool was developed years ago and was initially used extensively on SQL 2008.
  • Over the years, my work environment upgraded to 2014, then 2019, and the tool has always worked fine the whole time.
  • But I haven't tried to hit anything older than 2014 for almost 5 years, and it's been at least a full year since I've tried anything older than 2019. I also haven't yet tried hitting anything newer than 2019.
  • As of Dec 2025, the current codebase has been upgraded - all the latest nuget packages for data access and "ScriptDom" have been updated. So there's now even a bit chance that older MSSQL platforms may have issues, so beware.