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SET (Transact-SQL)
SET ANSI_DEFAULTS (Transact-SQL)
SET ANSI_NULL_DFLT_OFF (Transact-SQL)
SET ANSI_NULL_DFLT_ON (Transact-SQL)
SET ANSI_NULLS (Transact-SQL)
SET ANSI_PADDING (Transact-SQL)
SET ANSI_WARNINGS (Transact-SQL)
SET ARITHABORT (Transact-SQL)
SET ARITHIGNORE (Transact-SQL)
SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL (Transact-SQL)
SET CONTEXT_INFO (Transact-SQL)
SET CURSOR_CLOSE_ON_COMMIT (Transact-SQL)
SET DATEFIRST (Transact-SQL)
SET DATEFORMAT (Transact-SQL)
SET DEADLOCK_PRIORITY (Transact-SQL)
SET DISABLE_DEF_CNST_CHK (Transact-SQL)
SET FIPS_FLAGGER (Transact-SQL)
SET FMTONLY (Transact-SQL)
SET FORCEPLAN (Transact-SQL)
SET IDENTITY_INSERT (Transact-SQL)
SET IMPLICIT_TRANSACTIONS (Transact-SQL)
SET LANGUAGE (Transact-SQL)
SET LOCK_TIMEOUT (Transact-SQL)
SET NOCOUNT (Transact-SQL)
SET NOEXEC (Transact-SQL)
SET NUMERIC_ROUNDABORT (Transact-SQL)
SET OFFSETS (Transact-SQL)
SET PARSEONLY (Transact-SQL)
SET QUERY_GOVERNOR_COST_LIMIT (Transact-SQL)
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER (Transact-SQL)
SET REMOTE_PROC_TRANSACTIONS (Transact-SQL)
SET ROWCOUNT (Transact-SQL)
SET SHOWPLAN_ALL (Transact-SQL)
SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT (Transact-SQL)
SET SHOWPLAN_XML (Transact-SQL)
SET STATISTICS IO (Transact-SQL)
SET STATISTICS PROFILE (Transact-SQL)
SET STATISTICS TIME (Transact-SQL)
SET STATISTICS XML (Transact-SQL)
SET TEXTSIZE (Transact-SQL)
SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL (Transact-SQL)
SET XACT_ABORT (Transact-SQL)
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SET FMTONLY (Transact-SQL)

SQL Server 2008

Returns only metadata to the client. Can be used to test the format of the response without actually running the query.

Topic link iconTransact-SQL Syntax Conventions

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SET FMTONLY { ON | OFF }

No rows are processed or sent to the client because of the request when SET FMTONLY is turned ON.

The setting of SET FMTONLY is set at execute or run time and not at parse time.

Requires membership in the public role.

The following example changes the SET FMTONLY setting to ON and executes a SELECT statement. The setting causes the statement to return the column information only; no rows of data are returned.

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USE AdventureWorks;
GO
SET FMTONLY ON;
GO
SELECT * 
FROM HumanResources.Employee;
GO
SET FMTONLY OFF;
GO
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