We’ve recently released dbForge SQL Complete, a powerful SQL coding assistant for SQL Server Management Studio and Visual Studio that provides IntelliSense, advanced code completion, formatting, refactoring, and code snippets for SQL developers.
If you like IntelliSense in Visual Studio and work with T-SQL daily, you’ll definitely appreciate the productivity improvements SQL Complete brings to SSMS. But SQL Complete is not only about code completion — it also works as a powerful SQL beautifier, helping developers instantly format and structure large SQL scripts for better readability, easier debugging, and consistent coding standards across teams.
With flexible formatting profiles, bulk formatting options, and customizable style settings, dbForge SQL Complete helps maintain clean and professional SQL code in both small projects and enterprise environments.
However, we received many reports from users about SQL Complete performance when working with very large scripts containing thousands of lines of code. In some cases, opening such scripts could trigger the “System.StackOverflowException” message. On certain complex DML statements, our add-in could even cause SSMS to hang.
For example, the following query with a large number of OR and AND operators in the WHERE clause could lead to performance issues:
SELECT
A.*
FROM
Table1 A INNER JOIN Table2 B ON A.Id = B.Id
WHERE
ISNULL(A.Column1, '') <> ISNULL(B.Column1, '')
OR ISNULL(A.Column2, '') <> ISNULL(B.Column2, '')
OR ISNULL(A.Column3, 0) <> ISNULL(B.Column3, 0)
OR ISNULL(A.Column4, '') <> ISNULL(B.Column4, '')
OR ISNULL(A.Column5, 0) <> ISNULL(B.Column5, 0)
...
OR ISNULL(A.ColumnN, 0) <> ISNULL(B.ColumnN,
The same could happen because of a large number of mathematical operators and long concatenation chains:
SELECT
'A,' + 'B,' + @var1 + ',' + ',' + ',' + @var2 + ',' +
ISNULL(REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), column1, 103), '/', ''), '') + ','
+ @var3 + ',' + '"' +
ISNULL(CAST(column2 AS VARCHAR), '') + ISNULL(CAST(column3 AS VARCHAR), '') +
CASE WHEN ABS(column4) > ABS(column5) THEN '-1'
ELSE ''
END + '"' + ',' + '"",' + ISNULL(column6, '') + ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' +
ISNULL(CAST(CAST((-1 * column5) AS DECIMAL(20, 4)) AS VARCHAR), '') + ',' + '"' +
REPLACE(REPLACE(@var4, '@@kst', column7), '@@DEBITOR', column6)
+ '"' + ',' + ',' + ',' +
ISNULL(column10, 'EUR') + ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' +
ISNULL(REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), column1 + CAST(column8 AS DATETIME), 103),
'/', ''), '') + ',' +
ISNULL(CAST('' AS VARCHAR), '') + ',' + ISNULL(CAST('' AS VARCHAR), '') + ',' +
REPLICATE(',', 10) + ISNULL('"' + column9 + '"' , '""') + ',' + ','
+ ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' +
',' + ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' + ',' AS output
FROM
tabl3
We’ve done significant work optimizing the parsing engine for large scripts, and all these inconveniences have been fixed.
Now dbForge SQL Complete handles complex scripts much faster and more reliably, while the built-in SQL beautifier ensures your code remains clean, properly formatted, and easy to maintain — even for extremely large SQL files.
In addition, we fixed the “Error HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component” issue that could occur when working with multiple documents and closing one of them.
Users can also benefit from improved color schema support. Previously, selected objects were highlighted in yellow by default and this could not be changed, which created visibility issues in custom SSMS themes. Now, the colors of all elements in the completion drop-down list are automatically adjusted according to the current color schema.
Whether you need faster IntelliSense, better script parsing, or a reliable SQL beautifier for SQL Server, dbForge SQL Complete helps streamline your workflow inside SSMS.
It offers context-aware code completion, SQL formatting, code refactoring, snippets, debugging, and code analysis — all in one solution designed to make SQL development faster and more efficient.
Learn more about dbForge SQL Complete here:
https://www.devart.com/dbforge/sql/sqlcomplete/
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