Chapter 1: System Procedures

sp_syntax

Description

Displays the syntax of Transact-SQL statements, system procedures, utilities, and other routines for Adaptive Server, depending on which products and corresponding sp_syntax scripts exist on your server.

Syntax

sp_syntax word [, mod][, language]

Parameters

word: is the name or partial name of a command or routine; for example, “help”, to list all system procedures providing help. To include spaces or Transact-SQL reserved words, enclose the word in quotes.

mod: is the name or partial name of one of the modules such as “Transact-SQL” or “Utility”. Each sp_syntax installation script adds different modules. Use sp_syntax without any parameters to see which modules exist on your server.

language: is the language of the syntax description to be retrieved. language must be a valid language name in the syslanguages table.

Examples

Example 1

Displays all sp_syntax modules available on your server:

sp_syntax

sp_syntax provides syntax help for Sybase products.
These modules are installed on this Server:


Module               
-------------------- 
OpenVMS              
Transact-SQL         
UNIX Utility         
System Procedure     

Usage: sp_syntax command [, module [, language]]

Example 2

Displays the syntax and functional description of all routines containing the word or word fragment “disk”. Since “disk” is a Transact-SQL reserved word, enclose it in quotes:

sp_syntax "disk"

Usage

The text for sp_syntax is in the database sybsyntax. Load sp_syntax and the sybsyntax database onto Adaptive Server with the installation script described in configuration documentation for your platform. If you cannot access sp_syntax, see your System Administrator for information about installing it on your server.
You can use wildcard characters within the command name you are searching for. However, if you are looking for a command or function that contains the literal “_”, you may get unexpected results, since the underscore wildcard character represents any single character.

Permissions

Any user can execute sp_syntax.

Auditing

Values in event and extrainfo columns from the sysaudits table are:

Event	Audit option	Command or access audited	Information in extrainfo
38	exec_procedure	Execution of a procedure	Roles – Current active roles Keywords or options – NULL Previous value – NULL Current value – NULL Other information – All input parameters Proxy information – Original login name, if set proxy in effect

Tables used

sybsyntax..sybsyntax