Improving Performance for Some LIKE “%string%” Searches (SQL Spackle)
If you've ever wondered if you can do better than an INDEX SCAN when you do a LIKE "%string%" search, read on...
2024-11-29 (first published: 2014-04-07)
51,149 reads
Dwain Camps
The Right and Wrong of T-SQL DML TRIGGERs (SQL Spackle)
Triggers in T-SQL have many uses. There are right and wrong ways to write triggers. To learn the difference, read on...
2024-11-15 (first published: 2015-03-17)
9,072 reads
Calculating Elapsed Times (SQL Spackle)
Calculating elapsed time between time values can be an interesting problem that is easily solved even when data anomalies are present.
2024-09-20 (first published: 2013-09-26)
18,883 reads
An Alternative (Better?) Method to UNPIVOT (SQL Spackle)
Normalizing or UNPIVOTing data may be improved by using this lesser known approach in SQL Server 2008 or later.
2024-07-26 (first published: 2012-08-02)
46,081 reads
Performance of the SQL MERGE vs. INSERT/UPDATE
The SQL MERGE statement offers convenience, safety and elegance, but how does it perform compared to other methods?
2017-02-03 (first published: 2013-10-28)
170,220 reads
Logging and Error Handling for SQL Stored Procedures
Learn how to develop and test a template for logging and error handling in a multi-step SQL stored procedure
2015-09-18 (first published: 2014-01-20)
39,779 reads
The Fastest Way to Combine DATE and TIME Data Types to a DATETIME
Recently while working with a table where there were two columns, one a DATE datatype and a second TIME datatype,...
2015-09-08 (first published: 2015-08-28)
81,940 reads
High Performance T-SQL using Code Patterns
What exactly does this mean? We’ve heard of “code patterns” in other programming languages, but what does it mean to...
2015-06-04 (first published: 2015-05-27)
9,322 reads
The Best Tool for Comparing Whether Two T-SQL Queries Produce Identical Results
There is one software tool that should be in every software developer’s tool chest. That is knowledge of the platform...
2015-05-26 (first published: 2015-05-21)
7,631 reads
Excel in T-SQL Part 2 – The Normal Distribution (NORM.DIST) Density Functions
Today’s blog will be the second in a multi-part series on replicating Excel functions in T-SQL, continuing with Excel’s NORM.DIST...
2015-05-14
10,791 reads
Blogs
Demo for Parameter Sniffing and Memory Grant Feedback
Disclaimer: The following is built with Claude Code. Just need to justify my $100/mo...
My Social Media Rules
By Brian Kelley
I developed these rules a while back, before COVID. I had a period of...
Why Use TRY_PARSE(): #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
Someone asked why I would use TRY_PARSE after I posted a question at SQL...
Forums
Partitioning a table with TEXTIMAGE_ON option
I have a table that ends in ON [PRIMARY] TEXTIMAGE_ON [PRIMARY]. I'm about to...
OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2
Comments posted to this topic are about the item OUTER APPLY Fundamentals: Part 2
Building Great Software
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Building Great Software
Question of the Day
The Range of Customers
I have this data in the OrderHeader table in a SQL Server 2025 database (ordered by CustomerID ASC):
orderid orderdate customerid complete 3 2025-05-10 00:00:00.0002 1 21 2024-01-10 00:00:00.0003 1 15 2023-10-28 00:00:00.0004 1 13 2025-03-08 00:00:00.0006 1 11 2024-04-02 00:00:00.0007 1If I run this query, how many rows are returned?
SELECT * from dbo.OrderHeader where customerid between 3 and '6'See possible answers