xp_cmdshell sql adds beginning blank

  • I am using the xp_cmdshell to run a sql select statement and direct the output to a file.  Everything works fine except the file has a blank at the beginning of each line.  Is there some way to prevent this from happening?  Also is there a way to pad the end of the line with blanks?  I tried replicate in the sql and  including a column with blanks but both of these methods truncated the blanks.

  • I use xp_cmdshell to do what you describe and I don't get a blank line.  Post your script so I can compare.

    As far as padding blanks, convert your last row to char() and it will pad.  For example, convert(char(50),'Hello World') will pad 39 blanks at the end.

  • Thanks for the repy.  However, I don't have a problem with a blank LINE.  The problem is each line has a space (blank) at its beginning.  Code appears below (col1 col2 col3 are defined as char(#) and always have the exact number of chars in them equal to the definition)

    Set @sql = 'SELECT col1 + col2 + col3 from tmp_table

    Set @cmd = 'isql -U usrname - P pswrd -S Servername -d database -h-1 -Q"' + @sql + '" -o D:\filename

    EXEC master..xp_cmdshell @cmd

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