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From: Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net>
Newsgroups: comp.databases.ms-sqlserver,microsoft.public.sqlserver.programming
Subject: SS 2008: Front-End Language Processor for Scripts
Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 15:24:47 -0700
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Dear SQLers:

     I am trying to get around some of the limitations of T-SQL.

     I wish to run a preprocessor over script files much as the C
preprocessor does for C programs.  File inclusion and symbol
definition commands are about all I need.  Does anyone know of one
that will work well with SQL Server script files?

     I want to be able to define symbols like
          #define ERRSTL N'50001: String %s is too long.'
in a secondary file and have statements like
          raiserror(ERRSTL,16,1,N'ACUK)
expand to
          raiserror(N'50001: String %s is too long.',16,1,N'ACUK)
This would allow me to freely reorganise error codes without having to
hunt manually, and it would allow me to have consistency over multiple
scripts.

     I have done some searching and apparently one such is m4, but I
have been unable to download it.  (I only get a partial download and
do not know how to proceed.)

     Any ideas?

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko