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Hi there,
I am trying to set up an email alert from SQL server that will alert me when someone has input an invalid character into a particular column in a table.
I already have the list of invalid characters and just need maybe a procedure or function created to run every so often to check if there is a match in the conditions to send an email alert.
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Try to create triggerson the table, it wll be fired when a record is inserted
will alert me when someone has input an invalid character into a particular column in a table.
There is no build-in function for this, you have to implement this completly on your own, e.g. using stored procedure to check the entered data & write it to the tables.
OK. Yes that's what I mean. I already have a job that runs a stored procedure that checks when a disk on a server reaches a certain capacity and sends an email to alert me that the disk is reaching full capacity and I have to take action. I want the same thing applied to when a certain character is input into a column it will let me know that that has happened
Rather than check for invalid characters after insertion, have you considered a check constraint on the column to prevent the invalid data from being inserted in the first place?
Yes but that is not being considered at database level as this issue is a user input error and the people that own the system want to deal with it at application level and have advised they only want to know when it has happened. I am not sure what kind of action they have in mind to take. There are already a number of rows in the database that have that invalid character in them that is causing problems when another process acts on them at the time they were input.
What is the size of this table? If it is of moderate size, you can have have a job that scans the table every 15 minutes or whatever and sends a mail if there is an issue. Or just cause the job to fail and let that generate an alert.
The same is true if you easily can find which rows that have been added/modified since last run.
But non of this is true, you will need a trigger that acts directly (because the scan would take too long time). Sure, that trigger can just send a mail - but it could just as well raise an error to stop it at the gate. Or replace the evil character with a nice one.