Steve Jones

My background is I have been working with computers since I was about 12. My first "career" job in this industry was with network administration where I became the local DBA by default. I have also spent lots of time administering Netware and NT networks, developing software, managing smaller IT groups, making lots of coffee, ordering pizza for late nights, etc., etc.

I currently am the editor of SQL Server Central and an advocate/architect at Redgate Software. I am also the President of SQL Saturday, maintain the T-SQL Tuesday monthly party, and remember our colleagues at sqlmemorial.org.

You can find out more about me on my blog (www.voiceofthedba.com) or LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/way0utwest)
  • Interests: yoga, reading, biking, snowboarding, volleyball

Blogs

Goodbye, Microsoft

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A few years ago I took a new job at Microsoft, working as a...

The SUM of Nothing: #SQLNewBlogger

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I caught this interesting item over on Pinal Dave’s blog: Eleven Interview Questions that...

How to Move the SSMS Status Bar to the Top and Color-Code SQL Server Connections

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I use color-coded connections in SSMS to distinguish Production, Pre-Production, UAT, and Development. But...

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Forums

Today's AI

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Today's AI

Split Large Queries in Athena with a Simple Modulo Trick

By Rahul Gupta

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Split Large Queries in Athena...

Finding Trailing Spaces

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Finding Trailing Spaces

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Question of the Day

Finding Trailing Spaces

I have some data in a SQL Server 2025 database. It looks like this for the dbo.Customer table:

CustomerID CustomerName PreferredName
1          Steve        Steve               
2          Andy         Andy               
3          Brian        Brian               
4          Allan        Allan               
5          Devin        Devin               
6          Steve        Steve               
7          Sally        Sally
I want to detect which names have a single trailing space. The CustomerName is a varchar() and the PreferredName is a CHAR(). Does this query detect the problem rows?
SELECT 
       CustomerID,
       CustomerName,
       PreferredName
FROM Customer
WHERE CustomerName <> RTRIM(CustomerName)
OR PreferredName <> RTRIM(PreferredName);

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