Get comfortable with bits in your system stored procedures
In "Roll Your Own System Stored Procedures," November 2001, I told you about the procedure sp_MS_marksystemobject, which let me create in the master database a stored procedure that would access the sysfiles system table in the current database. You can usually access system tables in the current database without running sp_MS_marksystemobject—as long as you want to access system tables other than sysfiles....