Additional Articles


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

External Article

Making a more reliable and flexible sp_MSforeachdb

While the system procedure sp_MSforeachdb is neither documented nor officially supported, most SQL Server professionals have used it at one time or another. This is typically for ad hoc maintenance tasks, but many people (myself included) have used this type of looping activity in permanent routines. Sadly, I have discovered instances where, under heavy load and/or with a large number of databases, the procedure can actually skip multiple catalogs with no error or warning message. Since this situation is not easily reproducible, and since Microsoft typically has no interest in fixing unsupported objects, this may be happening in your environment right now

2011-01-18

3,580 reads

External Article

Data Conversion in SQL Server

Most of the time, you do not have to worry about implicit conversion in SQL expressions, or when assigning a value to a column. Just occasionally, though, you'll find that data gets truncated, queries run slowly, or comparisons just seem plain wrong. Robert Sheldon explains why you sometimes need to be very careful if you mix data types when manipulating values.

2011-01-12

4,537 reads

Blogs

Rolling Back a Broken Release

By

We had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward...

A bespoke reporting solution doesn’t have to cost the earth

By

You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...

Presenting with Visual Studio Code

By

A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects: The Fabric Modern Data Platform

By John Miner

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Remotely Engineer Fabric Lakehouse objects:...

Creating JSON III

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Creating JSON III

Testing is Becoming More Important

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Testing is Becoming More Important

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Creating JSON III

In a SQL Server 2025 table, called Beer, I have this data:

BeerIDBeerName
1Becks
2Fat Tire
3Mac n Jacks
4Alaskan Amber
8Kirin
I run this code:
SELECT JSON_OBJECTAGG(
    BeerID: BeerName )
FROM beer;
What are the results?

See possible answers