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Technical Article

Retrieve column attributes

Given database, owner, table, and column names, this procedure returns one from among several column attributes such as type definition, defaults, and other types of constraints.  E.g., to retrieve the type definition of the 'pubs' database's 'author.address':DECLARE @attrib VARCHAR (500)      , @msg    VARCHAR (8000)EXEC p_get_column_attribute 'TYPEDEF'              […]

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2002-07-24

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Technical Article

Count # occurrences of one string inside another

Scalar function 'f_contains' counts the number of times the first argument occurs within the second argument.Given:  @arg1, @arg2 (both VARCHAR), @cnt INTSELECT @cnt = dbo.f_contains (@f_search_for = @arg1                            , @f_container  = @arg2)

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2002-07-22

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Technical Article

Slice out string from within specified delimiters

Scalar function 'f_delimited' slices out of a passed-in string, from a specified position inside the string, that segment of it which is delimited on one or both sides by a specified delimiter.Example:  Print out a segment of a 'syscomments.text' column for a stored procedure 'p_proc', representing a line of code (i.e., the segment of 'syscomments.text' […]

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2002-07-22

126 reads

Technical Article

String-search on objects in a specified database

Procedure 'p_find_string' allows users to specify any database on a server in searching for a specified character string.  Supported for string-searching:  table columns, view columns, trigger, function, and procedure code.  Produces a report showing: object type, owner, object name, column id (for tables and views) or what line number (for triggers, functions, and procedures), and […]

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2002-07-22

151 reads

Technical Article

Scalar Function to Determine Age at a Given Date

This function was written to supplant cumbersome age-at calculations.  To execute, simply set a local INT variable equal to the output of the function.  For example, the following, given my birthdate, computes my own age:    DECLARE @age_at INT    SET @age_at = dbo.f_age_at ('2/16/1954', GETDATE ())

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2002-05-09

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Question of the Day

Backing Up a DMK

In SQL Server 2025, I have a database with a Database Masker Key (DMK). I want to back up this key and keep a copy offline. When do I have to open this key before running the backup?

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