This SQL 2005-only VBS script will show the longest-running queries on a given server, complete with graphical .sqlplan when clicked. Results go to a web page, viewed from the local machines's temp directory.Each row of the resulting table has the session ID, the currently running statement of the batch, a link to a text file […]
2007-07-24 (first published: 2006-10-30)
375 reads
Here's an alternative to Clinton Herring's ufn_vbintohexstr which should be much faster with large varbinary values. First, in his original version, the inner-loop CASE statements can be replaced with this: select @value = @value + CHAR(@vbin/16+48+(@vbin+96)/256*7) +CHAR(@vbin&15+48+((@vbin&15)+6)/16*7) How does it work? By adding 6 to a hex-digit in (@vbin&15), you have a value from 16 […]
2006-12-20 (first published: 2005-05-07)
130 reads
This is just an optimized version of Daniel Payne's two scripts, base64_encode and base64_decode, with changes to end-of-block handling and a bug fix or two. If the encoded string ends in =, the last character is truncated. If ending in ==, two characters are chopped off. That seems better than replacing NUL characters with spaces, […]
2006-12-18 (first published: 2005-06-04)
7,692 reads
Challenged by Hans Lindgren's stored procedures of the same name, I created this. Note that it produces strange results on non-hexadecimal strings, overflows at 0x80000000, and could have issues with byte-ordering on some architectures.How does it work? Well, the distance between one after '9' (':') and 'A' is 7 in ASCII. Also, if I subtract […]
2006-12-15 (first published: 2005-05-04)
216 reads
Hans asked if it could be faster. This is about 10% faster; not much. His is admittedly more readable, and mine will act very strangely with invalid hex digits.How does it work? I'm converting the string '1234' to the value 0x31323334 (for example), then subtracting '0000' so that it is 0-based in each byte (CONVERT(INT,0x30303030) […]
2005-05-16 (first published: 2005-05-04)
147 reads
Next Monday, February 9, 2026, my one-day live online training SQL Server Query Tuning...
By Steve Jones
One of the features we advocates have been advocating for is a better way...
Microsoft fixed the AVX instruction issue in SQL Server 2025 CU1. The container now...
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In SQL Server 2025, what is returned from this code:
DECLARE @message VARCHAR(50) = 'Hello SQL Server 2025!'; DECLARE @encoded VARCHAR(MAX); SET @encoded = BASE64_ENCODE(CAST(@message AS VARBINARY(1000))); SELECT BASE64_DECODE(@encoded)See possible answers