Is there a way to directly compress/zips the resul

Question

Off late I have been dumping relatively large tables using SSMS. The usual way is to set Query->Results-To->File, 'Execute`, choose a file and let the SQL query run. After it finishes, I usually zip the file and then transfer it to my local machine. This has obvious problems of the host machine running out of space during overnight SQL queries.

I was wondering if there is a way to compress the output from SSMS directly without having to wait until it dumps the results from the entire query. Any suggestions? The host machine is pretty restricted in what it allows me to run on it so a suggestion that requires minimal third-party software would be great.

Answer 1

Run the queries from sqlcmd instead and pipe the output into a command line zip (you'll need to install one, see What's a good tar utility for Windows?). Or you can use PowerShell that can zip out-of-the-box, including piped input, see Compress Files with Windows PowerShell then package a Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget, this requires no additional tools as PS is already on your host server (although on second read I think the PS solutions, as in the link, still requires a deflated file first, cannot compress on-the-file).

Sample query using sqlcmd and 7zip:

sqlcmd -S <DATABASE> -s <COLUMNSEP> -Q "SELECT ..." | .\7za.exe a -si <FILENAME>

Remember to use the -Q (run query and exit) and not the -q (run query) or else this won't work.