Don Peterson


SQLServerCentral Article

Is XML the Answer?

New Author! Don Peterson writes his first article for us and explores why he considers XML to be...bad! There are some interesting points made here and if you've haven't thought about what XML means to you as a DBA, it's a subject worth spending some time on.

4.77 (79)

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2008-05-02 (first published: )

64,747 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

Beware of Search Argument (SARG) Data Types

Performance tuning often seems like it can be more of an art than a science. However there are a number of fundamentals that can help you tune most of the queries that you will write or have issues with their performance. Don Peterson brings us a look at how he tuned a query in the real world to avoid a conversion that can cause a query to run slower.

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2006-07-13

11,849 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

Lookup Table Madness

Are you mad? Not angry, more like crazy when it comes to designing databases in SQL Server? Don Peterson has met a few people he thinks are just that when it comes to building lookup tables. Does it stem from poor understanding of database design? Or do you disagree? Read Don's case against this particular design practice.

4.48 (27)

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2006-03-24 (first published: )

52,196 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

All About Transactions - Part 3

Transactions in SQL Server are probably no more complicated than those in other RDBMS products, which is to say they are fairly complex. Don Peterson continues with part 3 of his series and takes a look at transaction isolation levels and how they interact with multiple connections and their impact on locking.

4.33 (9)

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2004-12-02

15,934 reads

SQLServerCentral Article

All About Transactions - Part 1

The heart of an RDBMS is the transaction system that it employs. SQL Server has a great one that can easily be misunderstood or misused by those that haven't spent time delving into the details of how it works. Don Peterson has done that and brings us the start of a new series on the details of how transactions work in SQL Server.

4.62 (13)

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2004-11-15

24,876 reads

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Question of the Day

Checking Identities

The DBCC CHECKIDENT command is used when working with identity values. I have a table with 10 rows in it that looks like this:

TravelLogID CityID  StartDate   EndDate
1           1       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
2           2       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
3           3       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
4           4       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
5           5       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
6           6       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
7           7       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
8           8       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
9           9       2025-01-11  2025-01-16
10          10      2025-01-11  2025-01-16
The docs for DBCC CHECKIDENT say this if I run with only the table parameter: "If the current identity value for a table is less than the maximum identity value stored in the identity column, it is reset using the maximum value in the identity column. " I run this code:
DELETE dbo.TravelLog WHERE TravelLogID >= 9
GO
DBCC CHECKIDENT(TravelLog, RESEED)
GO
INSERT dbo.TravelLog
(
    CityID,
    StartDate,
    EndDate
)
VALUES
(4, '2025-09-14', '2025-09-17')
GO
What is the identity value for the new row inserted by the insert statement above?

See possible answers