When I was looking
for what’s new in the SQL server 2012, one small and interesting item I found
that SET FMTONLY and sp_describe_first_result_set, let’s have a look:
SET
FMTONLY: This setting has two values ON and OFF,
when it is ON client only can see the format of the result set, not data. This
is for run time setting, not compile time. Below is the example:
SET FMTONLY OFF
GO
SELECT *
FROM [AdventureWorks2008R2].[HumanResources].[Employee]