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Fun with ACID

Brandie Tarvin from SQLServerCentral.com

What is ACID and why should we care? A look at the principal that drives all database and DB management software design: A.C.I.D. More »

Handling Errors in SQL Server 2012

Additional Articles

The error handling of SQL Server has always been somewhat mysterious. Now at last, the THROW statement has been included in SQL Server 2012 that, when combined with the TRY...CATCH block, makes error handling far easier. Robert Sheldon explains all. More »

Free eBook: SQL Server Execution Plans

Press Release from SQLServerCentral.com

Every Database Administrator, developer, report writer, and anyone else who writes T-SQL to access SQL Server data, must understand how to read and interpret execution plans. This book leads you right from the basics of capturing plans, through how to interrupt them in their various forms, graphical or XML, and then how to use the information you find there to diagnose the most common causes of poor query performance, and so optimize your SQL queries, and improve your indexing strategy. More »

From the SQLServerCentral Blogs - Using New Horizontal/Vertical Tab Groups

Kenneth Fisher from SQLServerCentral.com

This isn’t really one of those features of SSMS that I’ve used a great deal. At least didn’t until recently.... More »

There's an interesting piece at Wired on hackers and their impact on security. Despite the constant hacks and cracks of passwords, the regular lectures and pieces written on the subject, many people refuse to use separate passwords on every site, or choose long passphrases, or implement many of the best practices that are published on security. Some of that might be a lack of knowledge, but much of it is likely explained by behavioral economics.

Most people are never hacked and don't have issues. Even if they do experience some problem, they can often recover fairly easily. Lots of hacks are just annoying, like using your email account to send SPAM, akin to random vandalism. As a result, many people don't bother to change their habits. It might also be a tendency that's hard-wired in our personalities. I've educated friends on passwords and given them Password Safe. A few use it religiously, but others keep forgetting, preferring to keep regenerating and changing passwords or re-using them.

To solve some of these issues and create the behavior that we want, there are suggestions in the article for software designers. One is requiring stronger mechanisms up front, another suggests perhaps changing from alphanumeric pass-phrases to image based ones. One poses the idea of enforcing penalties on users. These might be ways in which we can convince software users to take security more seriously. If it's true that software is eating the world, then perhaps the designers and developers should do their part to help make sure security is a part of the new world.

Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.com

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The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

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Today's Question:

What is the result of the SELECT COUNT statement at the end of this code?

CREATE TABLE TblA1
  (
   col1 INT ,
   col2 VARCHAR(10)
   );
GO
CREATE TABLE TblA2
  (
   col3 INT ,
   col2 VARCHAR(10)
   );
GO

INSERT INTO TblA1(col1, col2)
VALUES (1, 'A'),(2, 'B'),(3, 'C'),(4, 'D'),(5, 'E'),(6, 'F');
GO
INSERT INTO TblA2(col3, col2)
VALUES (1, 'A'),(2, 'B'),(3, 'C'),(4, 'D'),(5, 'E'),(6, 'F');
GO
select COUNT(1)
 from TblA1
 where col1 in (select col1 from TblA2 where TblA1.col2 = TblA2.col2)

By Mark Grout

Think you know the answer? Click here, and find out if you are right.

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SQL Server Hardware will provide the fundamental knowledge and resources you need to make intelligent decisions about choice, and optimal installation and configuration, of SQL Server hardware, operating system and the SQL Server RDBMS.

Pick up your copy of this great book from MVP Glenn Berry at Amazon today.

The TRY…CATCH construct cannot be used in a user-defined function.

By rhythm varshney

Answer: TRUE

Explanation: This is true. A constraint with the try..catch syntax is that it is not allowed in functions. Please refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175976(v=sql.90).aspx

» Discuss this question and answer on the forums

Pro SQL Server 2012 Practices

Expert SQL Server Practices 2012 Edition is an anthology of high-end wisdom from a group of accomplished database administrators who are quietly but relentlessly pushing the performance and feature envelope of Microsoft SQL Server 2012. With an emphasis upon performance—but also branching into release management, auditing, and other issues—the book helps you deliver the most value for your company’s investment in Microsoft’s flagship database system.

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GetDateInString

Hilda E from SQLServerCentral.com

This function will return a value of date if found within a string, the date format in the string will vary. If no date is found a null value is returned More »

Here's a few of the new posts today on the forums. To see more, visit the forums.

SQL Server 2005 : Administering

Sql server Agent stops working - Hi all, I have been seeing a strange issues.We have a Sql server 2005 Enteprise edition installed on a windows 2008...

Missing green arrow on the sql server icon in object explore - Hello everyone I have tried to Google this issue for quite awhile and can't find any definitive solution. Now in my...

SSRS Dynamic path for target folder - Hello, I have a monthly report that needs to be delivered to a file share. The catch is...the folder is different...

SQL Server 2005 : Backups

Transaction Log Backup Job Failure - does it break chain? - Never had a "set-in-stone" answer on this one and I've, fortunately, never had to find out the hard way, but...

SQL Server 2005 : Business Intelligence

WMI Data Reader Task - Access Denied - remote - Hi folks SSIS - 2008 R2 on a Windows 7 machine accessing a remote server - which I think is 2003. I'm trying to...

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SSRS 2005 Multi-Value Filter. - Hi all, I met with a very tricky problem. I have a muti-value filter in my name whereby user are able...

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SQL Server 2005 : CLR Integration and Programming.

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SQL Server 2005 : Working with Oracle

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SQL Server 2005 : SQL Server 2005 General Discussion

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SQL Server 2005 : SQL Server 2005 Integration Services

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SSIS Script task to change table name in data flow task - Hello, We need to change the table name of 'OLE DB Destination' task. I am not able to use variable due to...

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SQL Server 2005 : T-SQL (SS2K5)

Test results report - I am trying to generate a report showing which questions were missed on an online test for a given student....

SQL Server 7,2000 : Administration

Lock tabels - Hello, Can I put tabels in read only mode? Thank you Julia

SQL Server 7,2000 : Performance Tuning

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SQL Server 2008 : SQL Server 2008 - General

In recovery message along the database name - I am using SQL server 2008 R2 express. Sometimes i see that only some database show "(In recovery)" along its...

Replace tokens for all job responses -SQL Agent - Can somebody help why [b]Replace tokens for all job responses to alerts[/b] need to be checked for WMI alerts ?

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truncate and load - Hi all, Is there any way to truncate and load the data when the tables have relationships. like disabling all the...

SQL Server usage in Financial Services - Hi, I am (still) often challenged about having SQL Server as the underlying DB for high volume applications (lots of transactions,...

Linked Servers Information - Dear, In the following figure/link, it shows two linked servers information. In the selected columns, it shows the opposite value to...

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SQL 2008 and SQL 2012 licensing - Dear all, Let me make a couple of questions that made me confused alot. (1) We have some softwares that only...

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Partition Splitting Problem<Changed> - Hi All, I have monthly partition (Size 150 GB per month). I forgot to create partition for January-2013. So all the...

Monthly Aggregation - I've created following code: [code="sql"] select DATEpart(Mm,(Convert(Date,semua_tkh_Daftar_txt,103))) as MonthNo, DATENAME(Year,(Convert(Date,semua_tkh_Daftar_txt,103))) as Year, DATENAME(Mm,(Convert(Date,semua_tkh_Daftar_txt,103))) as Month, COUNT(doclinkid) as Registered, sum(case when REPWPK.T_BMAL.Semua_Status_Kod like 'S%'...

pdf generation in sql - i have a simple table with 3 columns and 3 rows. is it possible to generate a pdf document by directly...

SQlserver p2p replication 2008 conflicts - Hi, We have SQlserver 2008 R2 sp1 p2p replication with two nodes. Couple of weeks before we noted the replication...

transaction log backup - point in time recovery - Hi Guys, Just curious will point in time recovery work in this case? (1) Monday 2am - Transaction log backup via maintenance plan...

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My BiPolar Users aka Sort a AlphaNumeric Field as if its Numeric - My users wanted a a field to be alphanumeric. That's fine. But they also want it to be sorted as...

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Import Excel data into DB automatically using scheduler...but DataSource excel changes daily - Hi, I was to import excel data into a table in SQL Server,regularly on a scheduled time. I was able to...

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Insert multiple lines in a single row - Dear, I want to insert multiple lines in a single row in SQL Server 2008 R2. I have tried. But it's...

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SQL Query - Hi, I have an issue with the SQL query I have created. The result that this query should generate should be...

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point-in-time restore of a database requirements - Hi all I have a question about a point-in-time restore of a database. I thought I understood all about backups years...

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server - Hi, The below error is logged into application logs intermittently.But, when I review SQL Server errorlog, event viewer application log, system...

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SSMS Add-in for Extended Property MS_Description - Just wondering if anyone has seen any SSMS add-in for easily adding / updating Description meta data for different objects, mainly...

SQL Server 2008 : T-SQL (SS2K8)

Need a backup script to get backup history status for the latest backup from all linked sql servers - Hi Guys, I am actually in need of a t-sql or a powershell script that will help me get the latest...

Partition Switch to another database - is it possible to switch the data from one database to another. See the below test code [code="sql"]USE [AdventureWorks2008R2] GO ALTER TABLE...

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how to concatenate rows and join in another table - Hi to all, Please bear with me. anyways, this is the tables i have Table1 Name Company ID Mike ABC 1 Joey CBA 2 Table2 OtherVisaID TypeID...

Wrong Execution Plan question - Hi, Our developer send me a query that takes long time to run. it has a query structure like this, select T1.*...

How to find (or create) the stats_stream, rowcount, and pagecount used in Update Statistics - I have been asked to script out the creation of specific tables in the database including primary key, nonclustered indexes,...

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Please help me understand this SQL - The code below is from a SQL trace I did to find out how our ERP system generates a gross...

Better Way to Perform this Query - Hello Everyone I hope that everyone is having a very good day. I need to write a query to select row counts,...

SQL Server 2008 : Working with Oracle

Need help - MS SQL Trigger for Oracle insert - Hi, is it possible to use a ms sql trigger to insert a row in Oracle Table ? I use this way...

SQL Server 2008 : SQL Server Newbies

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UDF Table - Hi i have little experience with sql server and i have just been thrown into the fire at my job...

SQL Server 2008 : SQL Server 2008 Administration

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Size of the ldf file increasing - I have some sql server database for which recovery model is set to full.Now for some databases the ldf size...

Is adding a User to the master Database a bad Idea? - I am setting up the Resource Governor on one of my servers and it creates a function in the master...

Programming : Powershell

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Help me Error SSIS Error (Agent Service) - An invalid reporting option was specified. Only E, W, I, C, D, P, V, and N are allowed Import Data Source...

SQLServerCentral.com : Anything that is NOT about SQL!

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Something random to ponder - So I had a funny thing happen to me a few minutes ago and couldn't help but share... QA Tester 11:54...

Today's Random Word! - HI When you woke up today, or logged-onto Opera Forums, you may have had a dream, a thought, a scene...

Are the posted questions getting worse? - Is it me, or are the posted questions getting worse these days? I just read a post by someone apparently in...

Reporting Services : Reporting Services

Multiple parameter ODBC - Hi I have created a report in BIDS 2008 that connects via ODBC connection. I am having issue with the parameters for...

Parameters in subreport - I have main report and subreport that is called from the main report. Subreport can be called multiple times depending...

Change hyperlink text - Using SSRS 2008 Standard. I'm not seeing a way to manipulate the hyperlink text. What I get is an entire URL...

Use subdomain to resolve Reports Manager - Using Server 2012 / SQL2012 how would i go about directing subdomain.domain.com to the actual "http://computername/reports" ? I already have the subdomain...

Reporting Services : Reporting Services 2005 Development

sql2005 - when i try to execute a query i got this message Joined tables cannot be specified in a query containing outer...

Database Design : Design Ideas and Questions

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Data Warehousing : Integration Services

Couldn't apply special formats for the data.This is the erroe i receive while i try to do it.. - Hi, I am trying to apply special formats attributes available in excel to my target file which is excel too. The process...

SSIS Package Not Writing all the Rows to OLE DB Destination Although shows the complete numbers on dataflow Path - my SSIS package loads data from excel file to SQL server table. The excel file has 5000 rows. When I execute...

Data Warehousing : Analysis Services

Measure between dates - I have a campaign dimension ( Its a marketing campaign for a product ) and i have to measure the sales that...

Why is the results take longer in MDX than TSQL? - Can anyone tell me why this simple MDX query takes 9 seconds and TSQL takes 5 seconds? -------------------- MDX ------------------------------- select null...

multi lingual capacity enterprise vs standard edition - Our SSAS pilot was started using the fully-fledged developer's edition where we added 2 additional languages. We tested the testcube...

Deply aggregations - Hi, I'm using SQL server 2008 R2. Monthly a job creates new 'month' partitions. So this partitions are not in my BIDS...