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About sp_readerrorlog

In this article let us understand the system stored procedure Sp_readerrorlog in detail. Sp_readerrorlog is a system stored procedure which can be used to read the SQL Server error logs from within T-SQL.

Syntax of sp_readerrorlog

Parameter 1 : Non zero integer value
Parameter 2 : File name
Parameter 3 : Line number in the file
Parameter 4 : Search string

1. Code snippet to display the content of the current event log
Execute sp_readerrorlog

2. Code snippet to display the content of eventlog.1
EXEC sp_readerrorlog 1, 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL$Velias\log\ERRORLOG.1'

Or

EXEC sp_readerrorlog 1

3. Code snippet to search a string --Would search the second row of the specified text file for the number 2000.
EXEC sp_readerrorlog 1, 'C:\SendToTextFile.txt',2, '2000'

Yep you got it right ... this system stored proc can be used not only on log file but on any file (as shown in the above code snippet).

Script to import the SQL Error Logs, format the results and then allow querying using TSQL: http://www.replicationanswers.com/Downloads/ErrorLogs.txt
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Comments

Aljo said…
Hi Vadivel,

Nice blog Vadivel.

The code given in the below link throws an error.

http://www.replicationanswers.com/Downloads/ErrorLogs.txt

Error description:
Msg 8114, Level 16, State 5, Procedure sp_readerrorlog, Line 0
Error converting data type varchar to int.

The problem is with the passed parameter to the sp_readerrorlog procedure, The second parameter should be an integer.Correct me if am wrong.

Thanks,

Aljo
11:27 PM, December 12, 2012
Vadivel said…
Aljo, as you would be knowing it is an undocumented feature. I wrote this post based on SQL Server 2000 where it should work. (I don't have it now to confirm it :) )

As you have rightly pointed out in SQL Server 2005 the 2nd param got to be INT only.



8:02 AM, December 13, 2012
Anonymous said…
i deployed one customized script in our environment on different instances, but this extended stored procedure can spike the CPU on servers where sql server 2005 is installed, if you will kill the job executing this procedure, it will not kill that actually and need to restart the database engine service. So becarefull on sql server 2005.
4:58 PM, January 22, 2013
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