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Showplan Operator of the Week - Merge Interval

When Fabiano agreed to undertake the epic task of describing each showplan operator, none of us quite predicted the interesting ways that the series helps to understand how the query optimizer works. With the Merge Interval, Fabiano comes up with some insights about the way that the Query optimizer handles overlapping ranges efficiently.

2011-01-28

3,071 reads

External Article

ERROR_PROCEDURE Does Not Return a Schema Name

"A recent blog entry I read reminded me again that I wanted to rant about an issue in SQL Server for quite some time now. SQL Server 2005 introduced the separation between user and schema. Though schemata already existed before SQL Server 2005, they really became usable with this version, imho. At the same time TRY...CATCH was a new way for structured error handling introduced. And so it finally became possible…"

2011-01-26

2,799 reads

External Article

BIT of a Problem

The BIT data type is an awkward fit for a SQL database. It doesn't have just two values, and it can do unexpected things in expressions. What is worse, it is a flag rather than a predicate, and so its overuse, along with bit masks, is a prime candidate for being listed as a 'SQL Code Smell'. Joe Celko makes the case.

2011-01-24

3,676 reads

External Article

LINQ Lycanthropy: Transformations into LINQ

LINQ is one of the few technologies that you can start to use without a lot of preliminary learning. Also, it lends itself to learning by trying out examples. With Michael Sorens' help, you can watch as your conventional C# code changes to ravenous LINQ before your very eyes.

2011-01-21

3,948 reads

External Article

SQL Server Unit Testing with tSQLt

When one considers the amount of time and effort that Unit Testing consumes for the Database Developer, is surprising how few good SQL Server Test frameworks are around. tSQLt , which is open source and free to use, is one of the frameworks that provide a simple way to populate a table with test data as part of the unit test, and check the results with what should be expected. Sebastian Meine and Dennis Lloyd, who created tSQLt, explain

2011-01-19

3,084 reads

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Question of the Day

The Max PK Length

If I create a multiple column Primary Key constraint, what is the most number of bytes I can include in the constraint?

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