Read versioned data in SQL Server using versioned views

You can execute SQL SELECT statements against versioned views to access versioned data.

Versioned views automatically access the current state of the DEFAULT version. If you execute SELECT statements against a versioned view, it will access the current state of DEFAULT. If other users are committing edits to the DEFAULT version (thereby changing the state that the DEFAULT version references), your subsequent queries will see the latest state and their edits.

If you want to query a version other than DEFAULT, or you don't want your queries against the DEFAULT version to change states, execute the set_current_version stored procedure. This procedure validates the supplied version name and sets the corresponding database state internally. Queries you make against the version will always point to the state the version referenced when you executed set_current_version.

Set_current_version can be executed directly from an SQL client. The syntax is as follows for an sde-schema geodatabase:

EXEC sde.set_current_version '<version_name>'

For dbo-schema geodatabases, the stored procedure is owned by dbo, so the syntax is as follows:

EXEC dbo.set_current_version '<version_name>'

This procedure can be called again to change to other versions as required and can be called each time the workspace is refreshed to return the current state of the versioned table to the calling application.

Steps:

1. Be sure there is a versioned view for the versioned feature class or table you want to access.

   Beginning with ArcGIS 10.1, versioned views are created when you version data. If your data was versioned prior to 10.1, you can create a versioned view by right-clicking the dataset, pointing to Manage, and clicking Enable SQL Access.

2. Open a Transact SQL query window and execute the set_current_version stored procedure to set the version you want to query.

   In this example, version2 is set as the version to be queried.

   EXEC sde.set_current_version 'version2'
   

3. Issue a SELECT statement against the versioned view to read versioned data from the geodatabase.

   In this example, the versioned view is code_mv.

   SELECT owner, site_address, region
   FROM code_mv
   WHERE region = 'b'
   

If you need to return to querying the current state of the DEFAULT version, execute the set_default procedure.

--For sde-schema geodatabases
EXEC sde.set_default;

--For dbo-schema geodatabases
EXEC dbo.set_default;

You can then run SELECT statements on the versioned view and your queries will run on the latest state of the DEFAULT version.