Introducing the Set-based Loop
Set-based programming doesn’t mean “no loops” or a single statement. Finding out the best ways to traverse a full hierarchy.
2016-10-07 (first published: 2015-07-27)
24,727 reads
Articles
How to generate T-SQL scripts in SQL Server Management Studio with the collation settings
SQL Server collation is an important setting when creating database objects. One of the best ways to ensure that collation issues do not happen is to ensure that the collation settings are properly specified in the script that generates the database objects - Siddharth Mehta demonstrates how to do this.
2016-10-07
4,085 reads
Taking Pictures from HTML
Sometimes a request from a user who doesn't appreciate the limitations of the technology can jolt you into discovering that an application feature that was, until recently, difficult to achieve is suddenly relatively easy. Dino was asked to allow the user to take photographs and associate them with an item of work. After he'd recovered from the shock, he decided that it was achievable, and now describes how he went on and did it.
2016-10-06
4,818 reads
Pattern Matching : More Fun When I Was a Kid
Aaron Bertrand runs some tests to challenge an assertion that CHARINDEX is always faster at pattern matching than LEFT and LIKE.
2016-10-05
3,387 reads
PowerShell Solutions - Working with files
When we administer a SQL Database, we always have to work with files. This new article shows how to handle them using PowerShell.
2016-10-04
3,129 reads
Managing SQL Server Backup and Restore History Information
Greg Larson explains that SQL Server provides a couple of different ways to delete backup and restore history. If you want to remove backup and restore information for all databases based on a date you can use the sp_delete_backuphistory system stored procedure. Or you can use the system stored procedure named sp_delete_database_backuphistory if you want to remove all backup and restore history for a specific database.
2016-10-04
5,098 reads
Constant Data Types
Data types are an important part of how tables and variables work. Did you know that constants have databases too?
2016-10-03
1,657 reads
Predicates With Subqueries
The ALL, SOME and ANY predicates aren't much used in SQL Server, but they are there. You can use the Exists() predicate instead but the logic is more contorted and difficult to read at a glance. Set-oriented predicates can greatly simplify the answering of many real-life business questions, so it is worth getting familiar with them. Joe Celko explains.
2016-10-03
8,250 reads
SQL Server for Linux
Although SQL Server for Linux removes the concern that adopting SQL Server forces you to also adopt the Windows platform, it could also provide a useful alternative platform, and a more obvious alternative to Oracle. There are, however, several obvious concerns as to how such a product could ever achieve parity with the existing Windows-based product. Microsoft have made an interesting move with several ramifications, as Robert Sheldon explains.
2016-09-30
6,963 reads
Masking Your Data with SQL Server 2016
There are times when you want some users to see part of a column value but not the whole thing, but you want other users to see the complete column value without any masking. The new SQL Server 2016 Dynamic Data Masking feature will allow you to define these different kinds of masking rules - Greg Larson explains.
2016-09-29
5,212 reads
Blogs
Flyway Tips: AI Helps with Commit Messages
By Steve Jones
At Redgate, we’re experimenting with how AI can help developers and DBAs become better...
Startup scripts in SQL Server containers
I was messing around performing investigative work on a pod running SQL Server 2025...
Using SQL Compare with Redgate Data Modeler
By Steve Jones
Redgate recently released SQL Compare v16, which included a new feature to work with...
Forums
What is Page Density
Comments posted to this topic are about the item What is Page Density
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Fuzzy String Search II
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
Azure-SSIS, Self-Hosted Integration Runtime, & Data Gateway?
Looking to confirm my understanding of these three products and how they can be...
Question of the Day
What is Page Density
In SQL Server, there is a concept of page density. This is determined by how much data is stored on each page. What is a page density of 90%?
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