Andy Warren

I started my SQL journey here at SQLServerCentral as one of the founders, helping to build a place to share and learn that continues to thrive under the editorial guidance of my friend Steve Jones. I've done a lot of volunteer work over the years ranging from our local SQL group (oPASS, SQLOrlando) to serving on the Board of Directors of PASS to designing and building the framework of SQLSaturday (which has gone on to produce more than 1000 locally managed events since we started in 2007). These days I manage a DBA team, but over the years I've been a trainer, consultant, contractor, and DBA. I'm rarely present on social media, the best way to contact me is here, LinkedIn, or via email.

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Blog Post

PASS Update #16

A one topic post this time. As a candidate for Vice President of Marketing for PASS this year I asked...

2009-10-18

629 reads

Technical Article

Sparse Columns – ConvertSVtoXML & XMLToResv

Not very often I run across something with zero matches in a search engine, but had it happen recently. I had set up a simple demo of a sparse column set and happened to look at the execution plan, was interested to see that the Compute Scalar was backed by ConvertSVtoXML. This was on a select from a table with one row, and then, being a little more curious, updated it with an xml fragment I saw a call to ConvertXMLtoResv. I’d venture that those serve to convert back/forth from XML storage.

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2009-10-15

1,219 reads

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Blogs

T-SQL Tuesday #203: Risk and Reward

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This is timely, as I’m currently on a boat in the Adriatic taking a...

dataMinds Connect 2026 – Slides & Scripts

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You can find the slides and SQL scripts for my session “Spice up your...

How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later)

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How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later) Updated...

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Forums

Using CHOOSE()

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Using CHOOSE()

Re-Seeding a Broken Log Shipping Secondary (Without Touching the Primary)

By LukaMK

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Re-Seeding a Broken Log Shipping...

The DBA is Dead! Long Live the !

By Grant Fritchey

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The DBA is Dead! Long...

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Question of the Day

Using CHOOSE()

We have this code that sets some status values and then queries them using the CHOOSE() function in SQL Server 2025. 

CREATE TABLE Status
(
    StatusID INT,
    StatusDescription VARCHAR(20)
);
GO
INSERT dbo.Status
(
    StatusID,
    StatusDescription
)
VALUES
(0, 'Uncategorized'),
(1, 'Active'),
(2, 'Inactive'),
(3, 'Temp');

GO
SELECT CHOOSE(StatusID, 'Unknown', 'Active', 'Inactive', 'Temporary')
FROM Status;
When the SELECT runs, what is returned?

See possible answers