John Sansom

John Sansom (Blog | Twitter) is a Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) of SQL Server and publisher of the free SQL community ebook DBA JumpStart, an inspiring collection of advice for Data Professionals, written by 20 SQL Server experts. Awarded the Microsoft Community Contributor(MCC) award, John is a prolific blogger and can be found regularly writing about SQL Server and Professional Development over at www.johnsansom.com.

All authors

All authors

Blogs

In-Person CISA Training – April 13-16, 2026

By

I will be leading an in-person Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) exam prep class...

EightKB 2026

By

EightKB is back again for 2026! The biggest online SQL Server internals conference is...

The FinOps Lifecycle: From Budgeting to Reporting

By

Working in DevOps long enough teaches you two universal truths: That’s exactly why I...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

VS Code, Unresolved References.

By mjdemaris

Hi all, I just started using VS Code to work with DB projects.  I...

Fun with JSON II

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fun with JSON II

Changing Data Types

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Changing Data Types

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Fun with JSON II

I have some data in a table: 

CREATE TABLE #test_data
(
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(100),
    birth_date DATE
);

-- Step 2: Insert rows  
INSERT INTO #test_data
VALUES
(1, 'Olivia', '2025-01-05'),
(2, 'Emma', '2025-03-02'),
(3, 'Liam', '2025-11-15'),
(4, 'Noah', '2025-12-22');
If I run this query, how many rows are returned? 
SELECT t1.[key] AS row,
       t2.*
FROM OPENJSON(
     (
         SELECT t.* FROM #test_data AS t FOR JSON PATH
     )
             ) t1
    CROSS APPLY OPENJSON(t1.value) t2;

See possible answers