PowerShell is a powerful scripting language that can be used to automate tasks in SQL Server. In this article, we will explore how to use PowerShell cmdlets in conjunction with the SQL Server client and output redirection to export the output of a SQL Server query to a text file or XML file.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have PowerShell installed on your machine. You can download and install PowerShell from the official Microsoft website.

Creating the PowerShell Script

To export the output of a SQL Server query, we need to create a PowerShell script. Let’s assume we want to query a SQL Server table using Transact-SQL and store the output in either text or XML format.

Here is an example of a PowerShell script that achieves this:

param (
    [string] $SQLServer,
    [string] $Database,
    [string] $outputType,
    [string] $filename,
    [string] $Query
)

$SqlConnection = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection
$SqlConnection.ConnectionString = "Server=$SQLServer;Database=$Database;Integrated Security=True"

$SqlCmd = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand
$SqlCmd.CommandText = $Query
$SqlCmd.Connection = $SqlConnection

$SqlAdapter = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter
$SqlAdapter.SelectCommand = $SqlCmd

$DataSet = New-Object System.Data.DataSet
$SqlAdapter.Fill($DataSet)

$SqlConnection.Close()

if ($outputType -eq "Text") {
    $DataSet.Tables[0] | format-table -auto > $filename
}

if ($outputType -eq "xml") {
    $DataSet.Tables[0] | Export-Clixml $filename
}

In this script, we define parameters for the SQL Server instance, database, output type (text or XML), filename, and the query to be executed. The script establishes a connection to the SQL Server, executes the query, and stores the result in a dataset. Depending on the output type specified, the script either formats the dataset as a table and saves it to a text file or exports it as XML.

Executing the PowerShell Script

To execute the PowerShell script, open a PowerShell command prompt and navigate to the folder where the script is saved.

Run the script using the following command:

./output.ps1 "SQLServerInstance" "DatabaseName" "Text" "C:\output.txt" "SELECT * FROM TableName"

Replace “SQLServerInstance” with the name of your SQL Server instance, “DatabaseName” with the name of your database, “Text” with the desired output format (either “Text” or “XML”), “C:\output.txt” with the desired filename and location, and “SELECT * FROM TableName” with your actual Transact-SQL query.

When the script is executed, it will query the database and save the output to the specified file.

Conclusion

In this article, we have learned how to use PowerShell cmdlets in conjunction with the SQL Server client and output redirection to export the output of a SQL Server query to a text file or XML file. This can be a useful technique for automating data exports and generating reports from SQL Server.