Read Environment Variables in T-SQL

I had recently posted on Use xp_cmdshell results in T_SQL. One of the blog readers Andrew got back asking if it was possible to read Environment Variables using this method and store the value in a variable for later use.

Here’s the query. The variable @windir holds the value and you can use it as you want: (Thanks to my colleague Karthi for simplying the query further)

DECLARE @windir nvarchar(255)
CREATE TABLE #Tmp
(
EnvVar nvarchar(255)
)
INSERT INTO #Tmp exec xp_cmdshell 'echo %windir%'
SET @windir = (SELECT TOP 1 EnvVar from #Tmp)

SELECT @windir as 'Windows Directory'
-- DROP TABLE #Tmp 

Note: Observe I am using ‘TOP 1’ in the query since the subquery returned more than one row, one of them being a blank row. I am not sure why is the blank row returned and till I find it out, I will stick with the ‘TOP 1’ command.

OUTPUT

About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, MCSD, MCAD, MCDBA, MCSE, is the founder of DotNetCurry, DNC Magazine for Developers, SQLServerCurry and DevCurry. He has also authored a couple of books 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls and a new one recently at The Absolutely Awesome jQuery CookBook.

Suprotim has received the prestigous Microsoft MVP award for nine times in a row now. In a professional capacity, he is the CEO of A2Z Knowledge Visuals Pvt Ltd, a digital group that represents premium web sites and digital publications comprising of Professional web, windows, mobile and cloud developers, technical managers, and architects.

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