How many of you have written resursive queries in SQL? Or any language since school for that matter? Not many people write recusrive queries because of the complexity, the difficulty to understand how they work, and the chance for heap overflows. However, SQL Server 2005 implements Common Table Expressions and recursion in a way that is much easier to code and incorporates some safeguards. New author SQL Server MVP Frederic Brouard has written a fantastic article looking at resursive queries.   Read more...

This article illustrates different methods to insert data into a table, including the new Row Value Constructor, which simplifies the data insertion.  Read more...

As we are reviewing the new features in SQL Server 2008, we found one that looks really interesting - Policy-Based Management. Could you help us to understand how this works and provide some examples? Can you please explain each of the components and how to manage them in the interface and with commands?  Read more...

A short review of this book by Ben Forta giving you the basics of T-SQL  Read more...

Continuing on with his amazing series on XML, SQL Server MVP Jacob Sebastian shows us how to use XML in SQL Server 2005 to generate an ATOM feed.  Read more...

Any time you need to modify objects in your SQL Server 2005 database, the objects that are dependent upon those objects are a concern. You don't want to remove columns from tables, procedures, views, or tables if there are objects dependent upon them that are being used.  Read more...

Create DDL table in SQL Server 2005 to audit Data Definition Language (DDL) trigger events when DML statements run. Define DDL trigger to track SQL changes.  Read more...

Longtime SQL Server author and expert David Poole takes a break from SQL Server to bring us a few life lessons for software development.  Read more...

Steve Jones talks a bit about the upcoming SQLServerCentral.com event at the 2008 PASS Summit and asks for some ideas.  Read more...

In a previous tip we saw how easy it was to link to SQL Server tables from Microsoft Access. As is the case with all systems, how does Access manage the changes? What happens when you modify the structure of the underlying SQL Server table? What happens to the SQL Server table if you delete the linked table in Access? We will look at each of these situations in this tip.  Read more...

One of the very common questions posted about T-SQL is how to traverse a hierarchy in a set based manner. New author Craig Hatley brings us his techniques for handling the common scenario of employees and managers.   Read more...