I made a simple table,st_ex, with ST.... columns and then here is the change script to strip the ST off: /* To prevent any potential data loss issues, you should review this script in detail before running it outside the context of the database designer.*/ BEGIN TRANSACTION SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON SET ARITHABORT ON SET NUMERIC_ROUNDABORT OFF SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL ON SET ANSI_NULLS ON SET ANSI_PADDING ON SET ANSI_WARNINGS ON COMMIT BEGIN TRANSACTION GO EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.st_ex.STID', N'Tmp_ID', 'COLUMN' GO EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.st_ex.STNAME', N'Tmp_Name_1', 'COLUMN' GO EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.st_ex.STAddress1', N'Tmp_ADDRESS1_2', 'COLUMN' GO EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.st_ex.Tmp_ID', N'ID', 'COLUMN' GO EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.st_ex.Tmp_Name_1', N'Name', 'COLUMN' GO EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.st_ex.Tmp_ADDRESS1_2', N'ADDRESS1', 'COLUMN' GO ALTER TABLE dbo.st_ex SET (LOCK_ESCALATION = TABLE) GO COMMIT

On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 9:28 AM Rafael Copquin rafael.copquin@gmail.com wrote:

I need to import a DBF table into SQL Server However, all the fields in the DBF table begin with the suffix ST (a previous programmer built the table in 1992, with the notion that all fields should have a specific suffix related to the table's purpose)

But I just want the sql server table to have all its fields without that suffix, ie: STACCT should become ACCT, STNAME should become NAME and so on,

The DBF table has 60 fields.

I would like to issue an ALTER TABLE statement directly in the SQL Server Management Studio to remove the ST suffix from all its fields.

But I have no idea on how to build a stored procedure with something similar to a DO WHILE loop in SQL Server, such that it would read a field name, remove the ST suffix and alter the name as desired. And then pass to the next field and do the same

In fact, I must do the same with all the DBF tables from the old DOS system, because I am converting it to a VFP9 app with a SQL Server back end.

Please show me a code snippet that would do that

Thank you in advance

Rafael Copquin

--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html

---

[excessive quoting removed by server]

I wrote a little function that reads in a vfp table, and outputs a SQL Create table script.  Would be super simple to either alter it to output Substr(coriginalname,3) or to edit/replace the field names in the text output file.  Do you want it?

--- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus