The use of bitmasking is usually limited to decoding values in the system views, but it can be useful in other places when you want to save space. New author Lee Everest brings us an introduction to bitmasking and its use in SQL Server 2005.   Read more...

The use of bitmasking is usually limited to decoding values in the system views, but it can be useful in other places when you want to save space. New author Lee Everest brings us an introduction to bitmasking and its use in SQL Server 2005.   Read more...

We've had a lot of coverage of dynamic sql (including another great one from Robert Marda later this week) but this one is a little different. Done in a question/answer format, Andy tries to explain to junior developers why dynamic sql is to be avoided, how to do so, what to do when you can't.   Read more...

SQL Server 2000 is an extremely powerful and flexible development platform, but if the users mess up the data, there's nothing you can do. Protecting the integrity sometimes means severely limiting access to users. Roy Carlson brings us a technique using sp_makewebtask that you can easily use to provide users with some data without giving them query access.   Read more...

Mindy explores the metadata stored in SQL 2000 to show you how to produce a simple and useful data dictionary!   Read more...

Dinesh did a little research on nulls and was kind enough to package it up for us. How many of you know or use NULLIF? Or COALESCE? Handy stuff!   Read more...

Robert is back this week with a look at the text data type. Not the easiest thing to work with, but sometimes a varchar just doesn't give you the range you need.   Read more...

Fast Track to MDX gives readers all the necessary background information needed to write useful, powerful MDX expressions and introduces the most frequently used MDX functions and constructs. No prior knowledge is assumed and examples are used throughout the book to rapidly develop MDX skills to the point where a reader can solve real business problems. A CD containing examples from within the book, and a time-limited version of ProClarity, is included  Read more...

We've had a lot of coverage of dynamic sql (including another great one from Robert Marda later this week) but this one is a little different. Done in a question/answer format, Andy tries to explain to junior developers why dynamic sql is to be avoided, how to do so, what to do when you can't.   Read more...

A monster book at 980 pages, it's written in 'how-to' format and has a ton of good material. Andy gave it the once over for us and reports back - see what he thinks!   Read more...

We've had a good run of jobs about job management lately, Randy sent us another one that looks at the job of job management and shows us how he tackled the problem.   Read more...

Are you using default values for your parameters? Using named parameters when you call the proc or passing the values by ordinal? Should you be? Andy thinks 6 out of 10 of our readers will agree with his point of view, we'll be a little more conservative and guess that 5 of out 10 will be closer.   Read more...

If you've been with us for a while you know that Andy started a series last year on worst practices. As he says, maybe you can't always do best practices, but at least dont do the worst ones. Read the article and add a comment, participate!   Read more...

Programmers can most commonly relate to interface-based programming in their programming language. This is harder to accomplish in SQL Server though. In this article by Chris Cubley, he shows you how to build interfaced-based SQL.   Read more...

Andy sits down with an entry level book to see if he should use it at work as a teaching aid. Did he like it? Should you buy it? Read the review now!   Read more...

Mindy explores the metadata stored in SQL 2000 to show you how to produce a simple and useful data dictionary!   Read more...

Have you ever experienced a T-SQL query, a stored procedure, view or a trigger returning unexpected results. In this article by Raj Gill, he shows you how ANSI DEFAULTS may be to blame.   Read more...

The use of bitmasking is usually limited to decoding values in the system views, but it can be useful in other places when you want to save space. New author Lee Everest brings us an introduction to bitmasking and its use in SQL Server 2005.   Read more...

SQL Server 2000 is an extremely powerful and flexible development platform, but if the users mess up the data, there's nothing you can do. Protecting the integrity sometimes means severely limiting access to users. Roy Carlson brings us a technique using sp_makewebtask that you can easily use to provide users with some data without giving them query access.   Read more...

We've had a lot of coverage of dynamic sql (including another great one from Robert Marda later this week) but this one is a little different. Done in a question/answer format, Andy tries to explain to junior developers why dynamic sql is to be avoided, how to do so, what to do when you can't.   Read more...