Setting ANSI_WARNINGS OFF to avoid NULL value elimination warnings can have an impact on the data quality and system behaviour.  Read more...

A second part to the series by Mickey Stuewe on writing better T-SQL looks at some of the issues of using views in a complex query.  Read more...

Tim Smith shows how you can use PowerShell to automate a simple comparison of objects such as stored procedures, views, and fucntions.  Read more...

One of the best ways in which you can build better applications is by learning to write better T-SQL. Mickey Stuewe begins a new series showing how you might start to think about writing queries.  Read more...

There times when you need to write T-SQL code that creates specific T-SQL Code and executes it. When you do this you are creating dynamic T-SQL code. When writing dynamic T-SQL you need to understand how dynamic code opens the possibilities for a SQL injection attack.  Read more...

This level discusses how to use a database VIEW to simplify your Transact-SQL(T-SQL) code. By understanding how to use a VIEW you will be able to better support writing T-SQL code to meet complex business requirements. In this article I will be discussing what a database VIEW is and then providing a number of examples to help you understand how you can use a VIEW to implement different coding scenarios.  Read more...

The COUNT function is among the most used functions in the T-SQL codes. Even though COUNT is easy to use, it should be used carefully because it could often not return the desired result. For the big tables, the counting of the rows could cause blocking as well as take some more time.  Read more...

This article will discuss geo-replication for an Azure SQL Database (PaaS) and the steps required for setup via the Azure portal and TSQL.  Read more...

An article about tally tables, N-Grams and the fastest character-level N-Grams function available today for SQL Server.  Read more...

Using the APPLY operator to reduce repetition and make queries DRYer.  Read more...

Alan Burstein discusses a better performning alternative to PERCENT_RANK that works on SQL Server versions 2005+  Read more...

When I began using LAST_VALUE, the results were not what I expected at all. Read on to learn the secret!  Read more...

This article describes methods of creating dynamic queries without the use of dynamic SQL to efficiently access large tables.  Read more...

The way in which SQL Server chooses to join your tables in a query can dramatically affect performance. In this article, Jason Brimhall explains how a hash match works and shows some performance numbers.  Read more...

The Books Online description of the RAND() function is only true from certain perspectives.  Read more...

There are times where you need to write a single T-SQL statement that is able to return different T-SQL expressions based on the evaluation of another expression. When you need this kind of functionality you can use the CASE expression or IIF function to meet this requirement. In this Stairway level Gregory Larsen reviews the CASE and IIF syntax and showing you examples of how the CASE expression and IIF function.  Read more...

Special Characters can lead to many problems. Identifying and reporting on them can save a lot of headache down the road.  Read more...

OPENQUERY arrives with a lot of baggage. Try this alternative technique to inserting stored procedure results into a new table.  Read more...

There are times when retrieving data for complex business requirement requires you to temporarily store one or more results sets for a short period of time. Typically these temporary tables are stored in the scope of the current connection, but they may also need to be available across multiple connections.   Read more...

Learn how you can find data in a string and extract it, no matter where it's located.  Read more...