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

SQLServerCentral Article

T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Concatenating Strings

Like many of you, I have often put strings together (concatenation) with a simple arithmetical operator: +.  We have a few other ways to put strings together, but in SQL Server 2025, we have a new operator that allows us to put strings together. This is the double pipe (||) operator. This article looks at […]

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2025-11-14

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Question of the Day

Multiple Escape Characters

In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):

SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned?

See possible answers