T-SQL does some things wonderfully, but cursors are the bane of the language, often causing performance issues. Changing your queries around to remove cursors can be tricky and new author Kamran Ali brings us one technique he has used to dramatically improve performance.   Read more...

Longtime SQL Server DBA and author Grant Fritchey decided to quiz his developers on how to perform some simple functions in T-SQL. Read about his results and see how you might do in taking his quiz.   Read more...

All of us need a steady stream of random passwords for the various systems we manage. Peter Larsson brings us an interesting T-SQL solution that generates one for us.   Read more...

While it's not likely that many of you need to find prime numbers using T-SQL, it is an interesting programming exercise. SQL Server guru Kathi Kellenburger brings us one solution after taking a break over the holidays and reading some popular fiction.   Read more...

A SQL puzzle from the SQL guru.  Read more...

An interesting puzzle from the Orlando SQL Server Users Group  Read more...

There are probably not many SQL Server DBAs that use the semicolon as a statement separator. In SQL Server 2005, this is required in certain places and new author Kenneth Powers brings us a look at where and why you need to use this syntax.   Read more...

Longtime SQL Server DBA and author Grant Fritchey decided to quiz his developers on how to perform some simple functions in T-SQL. Read about his results and see how you might do in taking his quiz.   Read more...

Chess makes a fantastic game for programming examples. You will find hundreds of examples on the internet. Some dedicated to OO patterns, others to algorithms and so forth. Unfortunately, most of these examples do not use a database or if they do, treat the database as nothing more than a storage repository. In this series of articles we will use SQL Server and T-SQL to implement the game of chess with an emphasis on thinking in sets.  Read more...

All of us need a steady stream of random passwords for the various systems we manage. Peter Larsson brings us an interesting T-SQL solution that generates one for us.   Read more...

For those times when you absolutely, positively got to perform a cross tab query in SQL, Keith Fletcher's T-SQL stored procedure will allow you to do it "on the fly". You can add it to your database and start cross tabbing immediately, without any further setup or changes to you SQL code. Check it out, and then take the cross tab challenge.  Read more...

While it's not likely that many of you need to find prime numbers using T-SQL, it is an interesting programming exercise. SQL Server guru Kathi Kellenburger brings us one solution after taking a break over the holidays and reading some popular fiction.   Read more...

T-SQL does some things wonderfully, but cursors are the bane of the language, often causing performance issues. Changing your queries around to remove cursors can be tricky and new author Kamran Ali brings us one technique he has used to dramatically improve performance.   Read more...

In the final installment of his series, Michael Coles examines a few other functions in his SQL Server 2000 toolkit to help you with other functions, like reading a directory on your server. Read the series and send some feedback to make this THE premier toolset for SQL Server 2000 DBAs.   Read more...

Phonetic matching, working on finding terms that are misspelled, is an art and there are a number of ways to handle it. In SQL Server 2000 the tools are limited, but Michael Coles brings us part 3 of his toolkit with some handy functions that can help you with text searching.   Read more...

SQL Server allows multiple triggers on a table, but the order in which they are executed can sometimes cause problems. Author Dinesh Asanka brings us a technique for managing the order of execution for your triggers.   Read more...

Do you use identity values? Do missing values ever cause problems? Maybe you need to look for missing invoices? Stephen Lasham brings us a technique for finding those missing values in a sequence.   Read more...

Do you really understand what happens when you create a stored procedure? What if you have some extra code in your batch? This is an interesting article that shows an interesting effect of creating a stored procedure and where your GO statement is placed.   Read more...

String manipulation is not one of the strong points of T-SQL, but there are some functions that can greatly assist you with searching and working with character values. New author Robert Davis brings us a look at PATINDEX, one of the search functions and also explains the differences between it and the often used CHARINDEX.   Read more...

T-SQL does some things wonderfully, but cursors are the bane of the language, often causing performance issues. Changing your queries around to remove cursors can be tricky and new author Kamran Ali brings us one technique he has used to dramatically improve performance.   Read more...

Longtime SQL Server DBA and author Grant Fritchey decided to quiz his developers on how to perform some simple functions in T-SQL. Read about his results and see how you might do in taking his quiz.   Read more...

All of us need a steady stream of random passwords for the various systems we manage. Peter Larsson brings us an interesting T-SQL solution that generates one for us.   Read more...

T-SQL does some things wonderfully, but cursors are the bane of the language, often causing performance issues. Changing your queries around to remove cursors can be tricky and new author Kamran Ali brings us one technique he has used to dramatically improve performance.   Read more...