The system stored procedures in SQL Server often yield interesting and unexpected surprises. You can find a system stored procedure to handle nearly any task you need to do. This week, I discovered the OLE automation (sp_OA) stored procedures, which let you instantiate and work with COM objects from within Transact SQL (T-SQL). You can use these procedures to create a COM object in T-SQL and use that object’s methods and properties. For example, you can use the File System object to open and process files, and you can read and write to files by using the File System object directly within T-SQL.

You...