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sp_set_session_context (Transact-SQL)

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Applies to: SQL Server 2016 (13.x) and later Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Synapse Analytics SQL analytics endpoint in Microsoft Fabric Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric

Sets a key-value pair in the session context.

Transact-SQL syntax conventions

Syntax

sp_set_session_context
    [ @key = ] N'key'
    , [ @value = ] 'value'
    [ , [ @read_only = ] read_only ]
[ ; ]

Arguments

[ @key = ] N'key'

The key being set. @key is sysname with no default. The maximum key size is 128 bytes.

[ @value = ] 'value'

The value for the specified key. @value is sql_variant, with a default of NULL. Setting a value of NULL frees the memory. The maximum size is 8,000 bytes.

[ @read_only = ] read_only

A flag indicating whether the specified key can be changed on the logical connection. @read_only is bit with a default of 0.

  • If 1, the value for the specified key can't be changed again on this logical connection.
  • If 0, the value can be changed.

Permissions

Any user can set a session context for their session.

Remarks

Like other stored procedures, only literals and variables (not expressions or function calls) can be passed as parameters.

The total size of the session context is limited to 1 MB. If you set a value that causes this limit to be exceeded, the statement fails. You can monitor overall memory usage in sys.dm_os_memory_objects (Transact-SQL).

You can monitor overall memory usage by querying sys.dm_os_memory_cache_counters (Transact-SQL) as follows:

SELECT * FROM sys.dm_os_memory_cache_counters WHERE type = 'CACHESTORE_SESSION_CONTEXT';

Examples

A. Set and return a session context

The following example shows how to set and then return a session's context key named language, with a value of English.

EXEC sys.sp_set_session_context @key = N'language', @value = 'English';
SELECT SESSION_CONTEXT(N'language');

The following example demonstrates the use of the optional read-only flag.

EXEC sys.sp_set_session_context @key = N'user_id', @value = 4, @read_only = 1;

B. Set and return a client correlation ID

The following example shows how to set and retrieve a session context key named client_correlation_id, with a value of 12323ad.

  1. Set the value.

    EXEC sp_set_session_context 'client_correlation_id', '12323ad';

  2. Retrieve the value.

    SELECT SESSION_CONTEXT(N'client_correlation_id');

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