SQL SERVER – Tips from the SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Introduction to Views – Day 23 of 35

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View Options

Not every query may be turned into a view.  There are rules which must be followed before your queries may be turned into views.

View Rules

This query includes a simple aggregation which totals the grant amounts according to each EmpID.  It’s a handy report, but we can’t turn it into a view. The error message shown displays when you attempt to run this code and create the view.  Notice that it says “…no column name was specified for column 2.”

We must first make certain this expression field column has a name before we can create this view. Alias the expression field as “TotalAmount” and then run this CREATE VIEW statement for vEmpGrantTotals.

CREATE VIEW dbo.vEmpGrantTotals
AS
SELECT EmpID, SUM(Amount) AS TotalAmount
FROM [Grant]
GROUP BY EmpID

Encrypting Views

Suppose you want to make sure that people can utilize this view to run reports, but you don’t want them to be capable of seeing or recreating the underlying code.  The sp_HelpText system stored procedure reveals the code which created an object.

We want to alter this view so that the source code is encrypted.  Two modifications to the code for vEmpGrantTotals will make this change:

1)        Change CREATE VIEW to ALTER VIEW.

2)        Add WITH ENCRYPTION before the AS keyword.

ALTER VIEW dbo.vEmpGrantTotals
WITH ENCRYPTION
AS
SELECT EmpID, SUM(Amount) AS TotalAmount
FROM [Grant]
GROUP BY EmpID

The best practice after we create or alter an object is to run a SELECT statement to confirm that it produces the expected result.  Look at Object Explorer and notice that a small padlock now appears on the icon for vEmpGrantTotals.

Often times you can just right-click a view in Object Explorer and choose “Script View as” to see the code for the view.  Now when we attempt that maneuver for our encrypted view, SSMS gives us a message saying that the text is encrypted and we can’t script this view. Management Studio (SSMS) will not allow us to generate code for the encrypted view. The properties dialog for vEmpGrantTotals also tells us that the view is now encrypted.

Attempt to run the sp_HelpText sproc and notice the message, “The text for object ‘dbo.vEmpGrantTotals’ is encrypted.”.

sp_helptext 'dbo.vEmpGrantTotals'

Msg 15009, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_helptext, Line 54

The object ‘dbo.vEmpGrantTotals’ does not exist in database ‘JProCo’ or is invalid for this operation.

Note: If you want to setup the sample JProCo database on your system you can watch this video. For this post you will want to run the SQLProgrammingChapter4.2Setup.sql script from Volume 4.

Question 23

What are the two ways to see the code that created a view? (Choose Two)

1. WITH SCHEMABINDING
2. WITH ENCRYPTION
3. sp_helptext
4. sp_depends
5. sys.syscomments

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