[sql-server] SQL Server: Filter output of sp_who2

Under SQL Server, is there an easy way to filter the output of sp_who2? Say I wanted to just show rows for a certain database, for example.

This is the solution for you: http://blogs.technet.com/b/wardpond/archive/2005/08/01/the-openrowset-trick-accessing-stored-procedure-output-in-a-select-statement.aspx

select * from openrowset ('SQLOLEDB', '192.168.x.x\DATA'; 'user'; 'password', 'sp_who') 

A really easy way to do it is to create an ODBC link in EXCEL and run SP_WHO2 from there.

You can Refresh whenever you like and because it's EXCEL everything can be manipulated easily!

I made an improvement in order to obtain not only the blocked processes but also the blocking process:

DECLARE @Table TABLE
    (
    SPID INT, Status VARCHAR(MAX), LOGIN VARCHAR(MAX), HostName VARCHAR(MAX), BlkBy VARCHAR(MAX), DBName VARCHAR(MAX), Command VARCHAR(MAX), CPUTime INT, DiskIO INT, LastBatch VARCHAR(MAX), ProgramName VARCHAR(MAX), SPID_1 INT, REQUESTID INT
    )

INSERT INTO @Table EXEC sp_who2

SELECT  *
FROM    @Table
WHERE
    BlkBy not like '  .'
    or
    SPID in (SELECT  BlkBy from @Table where BlkBy not like '  .')

delete from @Table

One way is to create a temp table:

CREATE TABLE #sp_who2 
(
   SPID INT,  
   Status VARCHAR(1000) NULL,  
   Login SYSNAME NULL,  
   HostName SYSNAME NULL,  
   BlkBy SYSNAME NULL,  
   DBName SYSNAME NULL,  
   Command VARCHAR(1000) NULL,  
   CPUTime INT NULL,  
   DiskIO INT NULL,  
   LastBatch VARCHAR(1000) NULL,  
   ProgramName VARCHAR(1000) NULL,  
   SPID2 INT
) 
GO

INSERT INTO #sp_who2
EXEC sp_who2
GO

SELECT *
FROM #sp_who2
WHERE Login = 'bla'
GO

DROP TABLE #sp_who2
GO

Yes, by capturing the output of sp_who2 into a table and then selecting from the table, but that would be a bad way of doing it. First, because sp_who2, despite its popularity, its an undocumented procedure and you shouldn't rely on undocumented procedures. Second because all sp_who2 can do, and much more, can be obtained from sys.dm_exec_requests and other DMVs, and show can be filtered, ordered, joined and all the other goodies that come with queriable rowsets.

You could save the results into a temp table, but it would be even better to go directly to the source on master.dbo.sysprocesses.

Here's a query that will return almost the exact same result as sp_who2:

SELECT  spid,
        sp.[status],
        loginame [Login],
        hostname, 
        blocked BlkBy,
        sd.name DBName, 
        cmd Command,
        cpu CPUTime,
        physical_io DiskIO,
        last_batch LastBatch,
        [program_name] ProgramName   
FROM master.dbo.sysprocesses sp 
JOIN master.dbo.sysdatabases sd ON sp.dbid = sd.dbid
ORDER BY spid 

Now you can easily add any ORDER BY or WHERE clauses you like to get meaningful output.

Alternatively, you might consider using Activity Monitor in SSMS (Ctrl + Alt + A) as well

Slight improvement to Astander's answer. I like to put my criteria at top, and make it easier to reuse day to day:

DECLARE @Spid INT, @Status VARCHAR(MAX), @Login VARCHAR(MAX), @HostName VARCHAR(MAX), @BlkBy VARCHAR(MAX), @DBName VARCHAR(MAX), @Command VARCHAR(MAX), @CPUTime INT, @DiskIO INT, @LastBatch VARCHAR(MAX), @ProgramName VARCHAR(MAX), @SPID_1 INT, @REQUESTID INT

    --SET @SPID = 10
    --SET @Status = 'BACKGROUND'
    --SET @LOGIN = 'sa'
    --SET @HostName = 'MSSQL-1'
    --SET @BlkBy = 0
    --SET @DBName = 'master'
    --SET @Command = 'SELECT INTO'
    --SET @CPUTime = 1000
    --SET @DiskIO = 1000
    --SET @LastBatch = '10/24 10:00:00'
    --SET @ProgramName = 'Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio - Query'
    --SET @SPID_1 = 10
    --SET @REQUESTID = 0

    SET NOCOUNT ON 
    DECLARE @Table TABLE(
            SPID INT,
            Status VARCHAR(MAX),
            LOGIN VARCHAR(MAX),
            HostName VARCHAR(MAX),
            BlkBy VARCHAR(MAX),
            DBName VARCHAR(MAX),
            Command VARCHAR(MAX),
            CPUTime INT,
            DiskIO INT,
            LastBatch VARCHAR(MAX),
            ProgramName VARCHAR(MAX),
            SPID_1 INT,
            REQUESTID INT
    )
    INSERT INTO @Table EXEC sp_who2
    SET NOCOUNT OFF
    SELECT  *
    FROM    @Table
    WHERE
    (@Spid IS NULL OR SPID = @Spid)
    AND (@Status IS NULL OR Status = @Status)
    AND (@Login IS NULL OR Login = @Login)
    AND (@HostName IS NULL OR HostName = @HostName)
    AND (@BlkBy IS NULL OR BlkBy = @BlkBy)
    AND (@DBName IS NULL OR DBName = @DBName)
    AND (@Command IS NULL OR Command = @Command)
    AND (@CPUTime IS NULL OR CPUTime >= @CPUTime)
    AND (@DiskIO IS NULL OR DiskIO >= @DiskIO)
    AND (@LastBatch IS NULL OR LastBatch >= @LastBatch)
    AND (@ProgramName IS NULL OR ProgramName = @ProgramName)
    AND (@SPID_1 IS NULL OR SPID_1 = @SPID_1)
    AND (@REQUESTID IS NULL OR REQUESTID = @REQUESTID)

Extension of the first and best answer... I have created a stored procedure on the master database that you can then pass parameters to .. such as the name of the database:

USE master
GO

CREATE PROCEDURE sp_who_db
(
    @sDBName varchar(200)   = null,
    @sStatus varchar(200)   = null,
    @sCommand varchar(200)  = null,
    @nCPUTime int           = null
)
AS
DECLARE @Table TABLE
(
    SPID INT,
    Status VARCHAR(MAX),
    LOGIN VARCHAR(MAX),
    HostName VARCHAR(MAX),
    BlkBy VARCHAR(MAX),
    DBName VARCHAR(MAX),
    Command VARCHAR(MAX),
    CPUTime INT,
    DiskIO INT,
    LastBatch VARCHAR(MAX),
    ProgramName VARCHAR(MAX),
    SPID_1 INT,
    REQUESTID INT
)

INSERT INTO @Table EXEC sp_who2

SELECT  *
    FROM    @Table
    WHERE   (@sDBName IS NULL OR DBName = @sDBName)
    AND     (@sStatus IS NULL OR Status = @sStatus)
    AND     (@sCommand IS NULL OR Command = @sCommand)
    AND     (@nCPUTime IS NULL OR CPUTime > @nCPUTime)
GO 

I might extend it to add an order by parameter or even a kill paramatmer so it kills all connections to a particular data

based on http://web.archive.org/web/20080218124946/http://sqlserver2005.databases.aspfaq.com/how-do-i-mimic-sp-who2.html

i have created following script ,
which resolves finding active connections to any datbase using DMV this works under sql 2005 , 2008 and 2008R2

Following script uses sys.dm_exec_sessions , sys.dm_exec_requests , sys.dm_exec_connections , sys.dm_tran_locks

Declare @dbName varchar(1000)
set @dbName='abc'

;WITH DBConn(SPID,[Status],[Login],HostName,DBName,Command,LastBatch,ProgramName)
As
(
SELECT 
    SPID = s.session_id,
    Status = UPPER(COALESCE
        (
            r.status,
            ot.task_state,
            s.status, 
        '')),
    [Login] = s.login_name,
    HostName = COALESCE
        (
            s.[host_name],
            '  .'
        ),
    DBName = COALESCE
        (
            DB_NAME(COALESCE
            (
                r.database_id,
                t.database_id
            )),
            ''
        ),
    Command = COALESCE
        (
            r.Command,
            r.wait_type,
            wt.wait_type,
            r.last_wait_type,
            ''
        ),
    LastBatch = COALESCE
        (
            r.start_time,
            s.last_request_start_time
        ),
    ProgramName = COALESCE
        (
            s.program_name, 
            ''
        )
FROM
    sys.dm_exec_sessions s
LEFT OUTER JOIN
    sys.dm_exec_requests r
ON
    s.session_id = r.session_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN
    sys.dm_exec_connections c
ON
    s.session_id = c.session_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN
(
    SELECT 
        request_session_id,
        database_id = MAX(resource_database_id)
    FROM
        sys.dm_tran_locks
    GROUP BY
        request_session_id
) t
ON
    s.session_id = t.request_session_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN
    sys.dm_os_waiting_tasks wt
ON 
    s.session_id = wt.session_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN
    sys.dm_os_tasks ot
ON 
    s.session_id = ot.session_id
LEFT OUTER JOIN
(
    SELECT
        ot.session_id,
        CPU_Time = MAX(usermode_time)
    FROM
        sys.dm_os_tasks ot
    INNER JOIN
        sys.dm_os_workers ow
    ON
        ot.worker_address = ow.worker_address
    INNER JOIN
        sys.dm_os_threads oth
    ON
        ow.thread_address = oth.thread_address
    GROUP BY
        ot.session_id
) tt
ON
    s.session_id = tt.session_id
WHERE
    COALESCE
    (
        r.command,
        r.wait_type,
        wt.wait_type,
        r.last_wait_type,
        'a'
    ) >= COALESCE
    (
        '', 
        'a'
    )
)

Select * from DBConn
where DBName like '%'+@dbName+'%'

I am writing here for future use of my own. It uses sp_who2 and insert into table variable instead of temp table because Temp table cannot be used twice if you do not drop it. And shows blocked and blocker at the same line.

--blocked: waiting becaused blocked by blocker
--blocker: caused blocking
declare @sp_who2 table(
    SPID int,
    Status varchar(max),
    Login varchar(max),
    HostName varchar(max),
    BlkBy varchar(max),
    DBName varchar(max),
    Command varchar(max),
    CPUTime int,
    DiskIO int,
    LastBatch varchar(max),
    ProgramName varchar(max),
    SPID_2 int,
    REQUESTID int
)
insert into @sp_who2 exec sp_who2
select  w.SPID blocked_spid, w.BlkBy blocker_spid, tblocked.text blocked_text, tblocker.text blocker_text
from    @sp_who2 w
        inner join sys.sysprocesses pblocked on w.SPID = pblocked.spid
        cross apply sys.dm_exec_sql_text(pblocked.sql_handle) tblocked
        inner join sys.sysprocesses pblocker on case when w.BlkBy = '  .' then 0 else cast(w.BlkBy as int) end = pblocker.spid
        cross apply sys.dm_exec_sql_text(pblocker.sql_handle) tblocker
where   pblocked.Status = 'SUSPENDED'

There's quite a few good sp_who3 user stored procedures out there - I'm sure Adam Machanic did a really good one, AFAIK.

Adam calls it Who Is Active: http://whoisactive.com

Similar to KyleMit answer, its possible to select directly the tables used by SP_WHO2, although I think it's only need dbo.sysprocesses table.

If someone open this SP, it can understand what it does. This is my best select to have a similar output as SP_WHO2

select convert(char(5),sp.spid) as SPID
        ,  CASE lower(sp.status)
                 When 'sleeping' Then lower(sp.status)
                 Else  upper(sp.status)
              END as Status
        , convert(sysname, rtrim(sp.loginame)) as LOGIN
        , CASE sp.hostname
                 When Null  Then '  .'
                 When ' ' Then '  .'
                 Else    rtrim(sp.hostname)
              END as HostName
        , CASE isnull(convert(char(5),sp.blocked),'0')
                 When '0' Then '  .'
                 Else isnull(convert(char(5),sp.blocked),'0')
              END as BlkBy
        , case when sp.dbid = 0 then null when sp.dbid <> 0 then db_name(sp.dbid) end as DBName
        , sp.cmd as Command
        , sp.cpu as CPUTime
        , sp.physical_io as DiskIO
        , sp.last_batch as LastBatch
        , sp.program_name as ProgramName 
        from master.dbo.sysprocesses sp (nolock)
  ;

Over this select, you can select the fields you need and have the order you want.