Add watch to SQL select statement

Question

I'm debugging this code in Visual Studio:

INSERT INTO @transactions
SELECT FirstDate
FROM #coo

During debug, before this query is executed, I want to see what the result of the select statement will be.

I added a watch for SELECT FirstDate FROM #coo but it says

could not be evaluated

How can I see the result of the select statement before the result is inserted into @transactions?

Hi! did you try to see and run your `SELECT statement` on the application you were using?? — Ban Tot, Aug 14 '19 at 02:47
No because a whole bunch of things are happening before this point in the stored proc. — David Klempfner, Aug 14 '19 at 03:52
Side note: You should always specify the columns list in an insert statement. — Zohar Peled, Aug 14 '19 at 06:05
`insert into table (column1, column2) values (value1, value2)` — Zohar Peled, Aug 15 '19 at 03:54

David Klempfner · Answer 1 · 2019-08-14T05:34:43.363

Thanks to this answer I was able to come up with a work around (until someone can answer the question).

I put

DECLARE @beforeInsert XML = (SELECT * FROM @transactions FOR XML AUTO)

before the insert statement, and then I put this after:

DECLARE @afterInsert XML = (SELECT * FROM @transactions FOR XML AUTO)

That way I could view the value of @beforeInsert and @afterInsert during debug and look at the difference to work out what was inserted.

1 Answers1