Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed

Using Scripting Variables with sqlcmd

sqlcmd provides a means for utilizing variables within sqlcmd input files or scripts. These scripting variables can be assigned as sqlcmd parameters or set within the sqlcmd script. To illustrate the use of scripting variables, let’s change our previous backup example so that the database that will be backed up is a variable. A new input file named c:\BackupDatabase.sql should be created, and it should contain the following command:

The variable in the preceding example is named DatabaseToBackup. Scripting variables are referenced using the $( ) designators. These variables are resolved at the time of execution, ...