CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#asp.netsql-server
Soulblade
Soulblade

Reputation: 71

C# Alter Table and Add a column programmatically ASP.Net & SQL Server

I have been trying to add a column programmatically in ASP.NET to modify the tables in SQL Server.

Please see the following code:

 string suppliernotxt = supplieridlist[1].ToString();
 //SqlCommand cmd2 = new SqlCommand("ALTER TABLE [ProductNormalDB] ADD suppliernotxt nvarchar(20) NULL", con);
 SqlCommand cmd2 = new SqlCommand("ALTER TABLE ProductNormalDB ADD @supplierlist nvarchar(20) NULL", con);
 cmd2.Parameters.AddWithValue("@supplierlist", suppliernotxt);
 //cmd2.Parameters.AddWithValue("@supplierlist", suppliernotxt.ToString());
 //cmd2.Parameters["@supplierlist"].Value = supplieridlist[x];
 cmd2.ExecuteNonQuery();

supplieridlist is an array that acquires all the column names to add into the SQL Server database. For some reason the parametrized method is not working and shows the following error:

Incorrect syntax near '@supplierlist'.

The basic idea is to have a user select from a check box the name of the suppliers, based on the selected number of suppliers the array will create the supplier names for ex. if we selected 3 suppliers, the array will save "Supplier1", "Supplier2", "Supplier3" and then the SqlCommand is supposed to alter the table and add the new columns.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 10799

Answers (1)

Steve
Steve

Reputation: 216273

You cannot use parameters to express the name of columns.
Parameters could only be used to express values for WHERE clause or for INSERT or UPDATE statements.

You could use string concatenation for your query text, passing the string value to a stored procedure or use some form of dynamic sql.

Please be very carefull with these kind of approaches because if you don't keep absolute control on the values passed to your code you will be exposed to Sql Injection.

Adding as an example of Dynamic SQL execution, but still vulnerable to SQL Injection

string suppliernotxt = supplieridlist[1].ToString();
string execSQL = "DECLARE @sup nvarchar(15); " + 
                 "SET @sup = '" + suppliernotxt + "'; " +
                 "EXEC ('ALTER TABLE ProductNormalDB  ADD ' + @sup + ' nvarchar(20) NULL')"
SqlCommand cmd2 = new SqlCommand(execSQL, con);
cmd2.ExecuteNonQuery();

As you can see, even with Dynamic SQL there is nothing that prevent an SQL Injection attack passing via the suppliernotxt variable

EDIT As explained in the comments below from @RBarryYoung, a good improvement on the SQL Injection problem for this case of dynamic sql could be the usage of the QUOTENAME function to obtain an Unicode string with the required delimiters around the input string 

string execSQL = "DECLARE @sup nvarchar(15); " + 
                 "SET @sup = QUOTENAME('" + suppliernotxt + "'); " +
                 "EXEC ('ALTER TABLE ProductNormalDB  ADD ' + @sup + ' nvarchar(20) NULL')"

Upvotes: 9

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