BOL documentation for SERVERPROPERTY function is incomplete by Ajmer Dhariwal

Resolved

as Won't Fix Help for as Won't Fix

Type:	Bug
ID:	780571
Opened:	3/4/2013 5:32:35 AM
Access Restriction:	Public

Workaround(s)

view

User(s) can reproduce this bug

I've noticed a couple of very useful new parameters for this function which I found purely by chance (by running a SQL Profiler trace against SSMS) but the BOL docs for this function have no reference to them:

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('INSTANCEDEFAULTDATAPATH');
and
SERVERPROPERTY('INSTANCEDEFAULTLOGPATH');

These return the default data and log folders respectively, but the documentation on the SERVERPROPERTY function makes no mention of these parameters.

Details (expand)

English

SQL Server 2012 - Enterprise Edition

Documentation

Not Applicable

US English

Connect to a SQL Server 2012 instance.
Launch a new query.

Run the following:

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('INSTANCEDEFAULTDATAPATH') as [Default_data_path], SERVERPROPERTY('INSTANCEDEFAULTLOGPATH') as [Default_log_path];

Results returned are correct, there's just no documentation on the parameters used.

A description of these parameters on BOL (and any additional parameters that may have been introduced).

X64

0 attachments

Posted by Ajmer Dhariwal on 3/4/2013 at 11:21 AM

Thanks for the swift feedback.

I'm aware there's a whole raft of undocumented commands for SQL Server, but I just thought that as SERVERPROPERTY is a function documented in Books Online some further clarification on these new parameters (which only came in in SQL Server 2012) would be helpful as the benefits of the information they provide are so useful to the wider community. Even if the documentation states that these particular parameters are not supported etc. would be better than leaving them totally hidden.

Posted by Microsoft on 3/4/2013 at 9:15 AM

There are a variety of features in SQL Server that are not documented and are not intended to be used by customers. We reserve the right to change these undocumented features at any time. And we don't commit to going through our usually deprecation stages for them. If you rely upon them, it might break an application at some time in the future. Also, they aren't necessarily tested with the full rigor that we put other features through. Note, I am not saying there is anything wrong with these two. Just that you use them at your own risk. Sometimes the undocumented features slowly migrate to fully supported features.

Microsoft