Understanding the difference between IS NULL and = NULL
This article by James Travis details the differences between IS NULL and = NULL. He also discusses the ANSI_NULLS setting.
2017-08-18 (first published: 2003-06-17)
143,680 reads
James Travis
- Interests: My Family, Programming (Go Figure), Movies, Guitar
PASS Summit 2004 - Another Look
Our longtime member and author, James Travis went with the SQLServerCentral.com crew to the 2004 PASS Summit in Orlando last month. For those of you that don't recognize the name, he goes by Antares686 in the forums and has been generous enough to post over 6,000 times, giving lots of his time and knowledge to helping others. He jotted down a few notes on the conference for those of you that weren't there and are considering going next year.
2004-10-14
3,480 reads
Hidden Dangers!
How many of you register a server in Enterprise Manager? Now how many of you click the "save password" box? Probably most of you. Are you aware of the security risks associated with this? James Travis looks at one of potential problems here and other security issues relating to SQL-DMO.
2004-05-04
7,613 reads
Review of Guru's Guide to SQL Server Architecture and Internals
If you are (or want to be) a power user, this book should be on your shelf. How many books have you read that have you using a debugger to step into the sql server process? James gives it a thumbs up!
2004-04-07
6,661 reads
Review of Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with Microsoft Visual
We get books in occasionally for review and have started making them available to our existing authors. Jim was interested in this one - turns out he didn't find much to like. If you're a beginner it might be a better fit. Or maybe you've read the book and disagree?
2004-03-16
4,922 reads
UDF to get first date or trim time for Datepart.
Not long ago I was in a forum discussion when someone presented another way to get the date with time value of midnight by doing similar to thisDATEADD(dd,DATEDIFF(dd,0,@DATE),0)Which I find is much cleaner than any other option I have seen or tried myself. Seeing this I realized there are many other dates that can be […]
2003-05-02
497 reads
Remove old DTS Package versions
This Procedure is what I use to clean out all the old DTS package version on my server periodically. You just place it in the msdb database and run it as you need to.Note: Although I have never had an issue with it, I do suggest backup msdb database beforehand, just in case you wack […]
2002-11-30
326 reads
What is the search order for Procedures prefixed sp_?
In this article, James Travis covers a common performance topic of prefixing stored procedures sp_. Does it really slow down performance?
2002-11-14
7,104 reads
Get total file size of backup for last full backup
The information for backup size is stored in the backup_size column of the backupset table in the msdb database as the total bytes for that backup. This script allow you to look at the total back to tape or file so you can plan space needs for those devices. This is a simple piece of […]
2002-05-14
4,642 reads
Get the current state of triggers.
One thing that many people may do is disable a trigger temporarily to make changes without the trigger causing an issue. This is a simple way to quickly get all the triggers states in a database, so you can verify is it enabled or disabled.
2002-05-12
502 reads
Blogs
No Shortcuts for the SQLCMD Batch Terminator: #SQLNewBlogger
By Steve Jones
I was messing around with SQLCMD and I realized something I hadn’t known. I’ve...
Where Is My SQL Agent? Running Scheduled Jobs Against Azure SQL Database
By gbargsley
One of the first things I review when I inherit a new SQL Server...
AgentDBA vs Critical SQL Server
By Arun Sirpal
It’s 07:43. Someone’s already left a message. “Something’s wrong with the DB server.” You...
Forums
Increment a number in a SQL Query based on a value
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Follow Your Hunch
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Question of the Day
Detecting Characters
I have a SQL Server 2022 English default installation on a server. I want to detect if there are any upper case characters in rows and I have this code:
SELECT CustomerNameID,
CustomerName
FROM dbo.CustomerName
WHERE CustomerName = LOWER(CustomerName)
Here is the sample data I am testing with:
CustomerNameID CustomerName 1 John Smith 2 Sarah Johnson 3 MICHAEL WILLIAMS 4 JENNIFER BROWN 5 david jones 6 emily davis 7 Robert Miller 8 LISA WILSON 9 christopher moore 10 Amanda TaylorHow many rows are returned? See possible answers