I really need help. The place I'm working won't give me any kind of access to the db to even be able to see db tables or column names or metadata. They want me to just write and ASP page to view it. Does anyone have this kind of app already available that they could pass on. I don't want to spin my wheels on this, but they are forcing me to do so.Doesn't SQL Server come with an app like this?
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ASP page for displaying db metadata and table names
- Thread starter obuspider
- Start date
So they want you to write an application to view tables (that you don't know the names of) and display a number(that they won't tell you) of columns (that you don't know the names of) in a db (they won't give you access to)...
Tell them you wrote the interface and made it entirely keyboard and mouse free. When they ask where it is tell them your sorry you can't show it to them, but since you worked on it while you were sleeping the night before you will still have to bill them for 3 weeks worth of work since time is relative and it was a very long dream.
Seriously:
There are ways to get this information out of the database using SQL, but you will still need to at least make a connection to the database in order to do this. If they won't give you access (ie a username/password) then your up the creek because you can't even request data from the database without access.
So basically you need to tell them that you need
a) an account for the website in the database
b) at least the basic design for the database, ie table names, column names, and field types
Otherwise (if they give you a but not b) they are asking you to write a web application that will interface with any SQL Server database with any number of fields/columns and allow viewing and editing. You may want to let them know this after you do a search out there for similar tools and get a general price range for them.
-Tarwn ________________________________________________________________________________
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq333-2924
Tell them you wrote the interface and made it entirely keyboard and mouse free. When they ask where it is tell them your sorry you can't show it to them, but since you worked on it while you were sleeping the night before you will still have to bill them for 3 weeks worth of work since time is relative and it was a very long dream.
Seriously:
There are ways to get this information out of the database using SQL, but you will still need to at least make a connection to the database in order to do this. If they won't give you access (ie a username/password) then your up the creek because you can't even request data from the database without access.
So basically you need to tell them that you need
a) an account for the website in the database
b) at least the basic design for the database, ie table names, column names, and field types
Otherwise (if they give you a but not b) they are asking you to write a web application that will interface with any SQL Server database with any number of fields/columns and allow viewing and editing. You may want to let them know this after you do a search out there for similar tools and get a general price range for them.
-Tarwn ________________________________________________________________________________
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq333-2924
Rereading your post I think I may have misunderstood part of it. Most of the above portion is still correct but I may have a minor change.
If they only want the asp page to display the table names, field names, metadata, etc Then you will still need the username/password and you will still need to know at least the database name, but you can write SQL statements that will query for the tablenames and fieldnames dynamically. If this is the case please repost, if they do actually want the data from the db, not just the metadata, then doing all of this dynamically is a waste of time, resources, and future resources (as the pages will load incredibly slowly, etc) and they need to supply you with the relevant information from above.
-Tarwn ________________________________________________________________________________
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq333-2924
If they only want the asp page to display the table names, field names, metadata, etc Then you will still need the username/password and you will still need to know at least the database name, but you can write SQL statements that will query for the tablenames and fieldnames dynamically. If this is the case please repost, if they do actually want the data from the db, not just the metadata, then doing all of this dynamically is a waste of time, resources, and future resources (as the pages will load incredibly slowly, etc) and they need to supply you with the relevant information from above.
-Tarwn ________________________________________________________________________________
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq333-2924
- Thread starter
- #4
Tarwn,
Thanks for your post. They will give me an account and password for connection. They even have an asp app that they had running on a previous server until they moved to a new server, but now they are saying we just need to create our own since they don't want us having that kind of access to the db. I don't see what the different is between that app and writing our own since they are both asp except that they want us to spin our wheels. In any case, could you give me the kind of code and statement I'd need to write to display table names and to get metadata from a db? Thanks.
Thanks for your post. They will give me an account and password for connection. They even have an asp app that they had running on a previous server until they moved to a new server, but now they are saying we just need to create our own since they don't want us having that kind of access to the db. I don't see what the different is between that app and writing our own since they are both asp except that they want us to spin our wheels. In any case, could you give me the kind of code and statement I'd need to write to display table names and to get metadata from a db? Thanks.
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