Show Plan Events in SQL Profiler

Have you ever tried to use Show Plan events?  These produce a binary column which, according to SQL Server Books Online (BOL), holds an "estimated cost of the query."  In fact, the entire SHOWPLAN output is in the binary column. (This should be in TextData, according to BOL,  but text data is blank.)

When you look at the event in SQL Profiler, in the lower pane, you see a textual representation.  But if you have the data in a table, all you have is a blob. If you want to search the data, SQL Profiler doesn’t do a good job.  So how can you interpret this data?

The good news is that SQL Server MVP Umachandar has some scripts to do this on his Web site.

Umachandar has lots of other useful scripts and articles on his page.  So be sure to check out everything he’s posted.

Cheers,

-Kevin