Error Messages

When SQL Server encounters a problem, it writes a message from the sysmessages system table to the error log or sends it to the client, depending on the severity level.

Each message contains:

• A message number that uniquely identifies the error message
• A severity level
• An error state number that identifies the source from which the error was issued (if the error can be issued from more than one place)
• A message that states what the problem is and possibly how to fix it

For example, if you try to access a table that doesn't exist:

select * from bogus

The error message sent to the client looks something like this:

Msg 208, Level 16, State 1
Invalid object name 'bogus'.

You can see a list of SQL Server error messages by selecting data from the sysmessages table in the master database. For a complete list of the messages in sysmessages, see Chapter 26, "System Messages."