Articles

SQLServerCentral Article

Should I Type * or 1 With the EXISTS Logical Operator

In my project I see that people writes different things with EXISTS logical operator (EXISTS (SELECT StarOrOne FROM...)). They are "*", "1" and even "TOP 1 1" or "TOP 1 *". The aim of this article to give a good explanation which option is the best.

(44)

You rated this post out of 5. Change rating

2020-01-24 (first published: )

14,871 reads

External Article

Monitoring SQL Server with Splunk and SQL Monitor

Splunk is a search engine for collecting and analyzing all sorts of "machine data", including log data and metrics for SQL Server. SQL Monitor gives you the detailed diagnostic view of all your SQL Server instances, and databases. If you have Splunk to monitor your applications and server infrastructure, and SQL Monitor to help you understand the behavior of a complex database system such as SQL Server, then you have a powerful and capable monitoring tool set.

2020-01-24

External Article

Removing the Square Bracket Decorations with SQL Prompt

If you avoid illegal characters and reserved words in your identifiers, you'll rarely need delimiters. Sadly, SSMS applies square bracket delimiters indiscriminately, as a precaution, when generating build scripts. Phil Factor provides a handy function that adds quoted delimiters only where they are really needed and then sits back and lets SQL Prompt strip out any extraneous square brackets, in a flash.

2020-01-22

Blogs

Reality (And Limits) of Instant File Initialization for Transaction Logs in SQL Server 2022

By

Reality (And Limits) of Instant File Initialization for Transaction Logs in SQL Server 2022 ...

Looking Back at the Redgate 2026 Company Kickoff

By

Last week I spent a few days in Cambridge, UK for the Redgate Company...

Using AI for Git Hooks

By

Recently I had someone internally ask about whether SQL Source Control supports Git Hooks....

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

SQL Agent job running gMSA cannot backup to NAS target

By DataMatt43

I'm running a group MSA for the database engine and SQL Agent in a...

sys.query_store_query question

By as_1234

All, My query is as follows: SET DATEFORMAT dmy SELECT p.query_id, DATEADD(MICROSECOND,-rs.max_duration,rs.first_execution_time) AS starttime,...

Encoding Strings

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Encoding Strings

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Encoding Strings

I have this code in SQL Server 2025. What is the result?

DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!';
DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX);

SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(@message);
SELECT @encoded AS EncodedResult;

See possible answers