BULK INSERT and BCP are powerful, high performance tools for importing text files. SQL Server MVP Jeff Moden gives us several nifty tips in this introduction to BULK INSERT and BCP Format Files including "Skipping Columns" and the sequestration of bad rows while still loading all the good data.
2024-11-22 (first published: 2014-01-23)
25,761 reads
SQL Server MVP Jeff Moden shows us a quick and dirty bit of SQL Spackle to display the content of VARCHAR(MAX) and NVARCHAR(MAX).
2024-10-04 (first published: 2011-01-27)
24,404 reads
Learn how you can query a hierarchy of data and also return the results in an ordered fashion. A handy T-SQL skill that you will use over and over again.
2024-08-02 (first published: 2011-03-10)
24,279 reads
tl;dr The title says it all. Prologue One of the keys to my personal learning is that, very early in my database career, I taught myself how to make lot’s of rows of Random Constrained Data in a comparatively short time. With the help of a few good folks over time, the method has been […]
2023-09-18
4,193 reads
The most common method on the internet for combining DATE and TIME columns in SQL Server is incorrect. This article demonstrates why that and other methods are incorrect and two lesser known high performance methods that produce correct results even for the "edge cases".
2023-08-07
25,436 reads
In Unix, a timestamp is a whole number that represents a date and time. Learn how we can convert those correctly in SQL Server.
2022-11-15 (first published: 2022-09-14)
56,404 reads
Many people have used a "Numbers" or "Tally" table without really knowing what it does. This is an introduction as to how a Tally table replaces a loop.
2022-09-05 (first published: 2008-05-07)
157,712 reads
Here's why you should NEVER use the FORMAT() function in SQL Server.
2022-08-05
21,742 reads
Learn to calculate Start / First of Week, End of Week, Start of Next Week, Year, Quarter, and Month of the week, Week Numbers and more in T-SQL (Jeff Moden)
2022-07-13
35,218 reads
What's the true and permanent cost of lowering the Fill Factor of an index in SQL Server? It's a lot more than many people think. 9 year SQL Server MVP veteran, Jeff Moden, demonstrates how to calculate the extra space that will be used by lowering the Fill Factor and saved by increasing it.
2021-05-28 (first published: 2019-09-03)
10,373 reads
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What does this return on SQL Server 2025?
select bit_count(null)See possible answers