sqlcmd Unexpected Argument Error

[bmacbmac]

Hello, in command line I am trying the following:

sqlcmd -S servername -U username -P password -d Master -Q "select name from sysdatabases"

I am getting the following message:

sqlcmd: 'name from sysdatabases"' " Unexpected argument. Enter '-?' for help.


Can anyone see what my invalid argument is?

 

[bmacbmac]

Update: I tried again with something really simple:

sqlcmd -Q "select [name] from master.dbo.sysdatabases'

and still received the error:

sqlcmd: '[name] from master.dbl.sysdatabases"': unexpected argument.


The message complete omits the word 'SELECT' as though it is not being used in the script.

 

[gmmastros]

Weird.

I ran the command from your original post, replacing the server, user and password. It worked properly. I ran this command directly in a command prompt window.

Are you running this in a batch file or automated from another programming language?

-George
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
My Blogs
SQLCop
twitter
"The great things about standards is that there are so many to choose from." - Fortune Cookie Wisdom

 

[flapeyre]

Change your trailing single quote to a double quote.

-- Francis
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
--Mark Twain

 

[yelworcm]

Make sure the quotes around the query string are in fact double quotes. If this has been copy/pasted from an email editor, or Microsoft's most "helpful" of tools Microsoft Word, then you may find one or more of those double quotes is in fact not a double quote.

 

[bmacbmac]

Son of a !! That was it yelworcm. I just retyped and it worked.

 

[flapeyre]

You might want to get Notepad ++:

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

-- Francis
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
--Mark Twain