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Quickstart: Create a new local copy of a database in a container with sqlcmd

In this quickstart, you'll use a single command in sqlcmd to create a new container, and restore a database to that container to create a new local copy of a database, for development or testing.

Prerequisites

Remarks

Installing sqlcmd (Go) via a package manager replaces sqlcmd (ODBC) with sqlcmd (Go) in your environment path. Any current command line sessions need to be closed and reopened for this change to take to effect. sqlcmd (ODBC) isn't removed, and can still be used by specifying the full path to the executable.

You can also update your PATH variable to indicate which version takes precedence. To do so in Windows 11, open System settings and go to About > Advanced system settings. When System Properties opens, select the Environment Variables button. In the lower half, under System variables, select Path and then select Edit. If the location sqlcmd (Go) is saved to (C:\Program Files\sqlcmd is default) is listed before C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\<version>\Tools\Binn, then sqlcmd (Go) is used.

You can reverse the order to make sqlcmd (ODBC) the default again.

Download and install sqlcmd (Go)

For more information, see Download and install the sqlcmd utility.

What problem will we solve?

This quickstart walks through the process of creating a local copy of a database, then querying it to analyze spending by customer.

Create a new container and restore a database

Create a new SQL Server instance in a container using the latest version of SQL Server. The command also restores the WideWorldImporters database.

Open a new terminal window and run the following command:

sqlcmd create mssql --name sql1 --accept-eula --using https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples/releases/download/wide-world-importers-v1.0/WideWorldImporters-Full.bak

Query the database in Visual Studio Code

Now that you have a local copy of your database, you can run queries.

Connect to the database with the MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code, and run the following query to analyze spending by customer:

SELECT bg.BuyingGroupName AS CustomerName,
        COUNT(DISTINCT i.InvoiceID) AS InvoiceCount,
        COUNT(il.InvoiceLineID) AS InvoiceLineCount,
        SUM(il.LineProfit) AS Profit,
        SUM(il.ExtendedPrice) AS ExtendedPrice
FROM Sales.Invoices AS i
    INNER JOIN Sales.Customers AS c
        ON i.CustomerID = c.CustomerID
    INNER JOIN Sales.InvoiceLines AS il
        ON i.InvoiceID = il.InvoiceID
    INNER JOIN Sales.BuyingGroups AS bg
        ON c.BuyingGroupID = bg.BuyingGroupID
GROUP BY bg.BuyingGroupName
UNION
SELECT c.CustomerName,
        COUNT(DISTINCT i.InvoiceID) AS InvoiceCount,
        COUNT(il.InvoiceLineID) AS InvoiceLineCount,
        SUM(il.LineProfit) AS Profit,
        SUM(il.ExtendedPrice) AS ExtendedPrice
FROM Sales.Invoices AS i
    INNER JOIN Sales.Customers AS c
        ON i.CustomerID = c.CustomerID
    INNER JOIN Sales.InvoiceLines AS il
        ON i.InvoiceID = il.InvoiceID
    LEFT OUTER JOIN Sales.BuyingGroups AS bg
        ON c.BuyingGroupID = bg.BuyingGroupID
WHERE bg.BuyingGroupID IS NULL
GROUP BY c.CustomerName
ORDER BY Profit DESC;

How did we solve the problem?

You were able to quickly create a local copy of a database for development and testing purposes. With a single command, you created a new local instance and restored the most recent backup to it. You then ran another command to connect to it via Visual Studio Code. You then queried the database using the MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code to analyze spending by customer.

Clean up resources

When you're done trying out the database, delete the container with the following command:

sqlcmd delete --force

The --force flag is used here for convenience since we are in a demo environment. In most cases, it's better to leave the --force flag off to make sure you aren't inadvertently deleting a database you don't mean to.

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