White Space in fields??

  • I am having an issue where white space is consistently being added to fields in a SQL DB (2008). All of the offending fields are VARCHAR fields with specified lengths. We run LTRIM/RTRIM statements against the tables, and the issue resolves, but a few days later, the issue crops up again. Same tables/fields. I am wondering what could be causing this issue. Would regular maintenance routines assist with this issue? Could creating a backup cause this issue? I am completely baffled. (DB is back-end to a c# web application). We have other DB's that are exactly the same, where this issue does not occur, so I am looking for any suggestions on how we can prevent this from happening. I have tried google, and no luck. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

  • jlandry (9/30/2014)


    Would regular maintenance routines assist with this issue?

    No

    Could creating a backup cause this issue?

    No.

    so I am looking for any suggestions on how we can prevent this from happening.

    Something is running update statements against those tables. Either audit with triggers, run a server side trace or configure extended events and see who and what is running those updates.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Just curious, could affected tables with the working database and the database that gets spaces have different ANSI_PADDING settings?

  • After "googling", I check that... :-/ The ANSI padding wasn't set. Still looking around. The DBA also ensured me that there are not any maintenance routines that "update" the tables.

  • Something has to be running an update somewhere. Are the other databases identical including the stored procedures and front-end code?

    Is there something that runs does update to the result of a cast to a CHAR?

    If you can't find it, Gail already suggested the trigger and trace.

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