One of the things that I like about the SQL Server docs (MS Learn Docs) is that I can fix things I find wrong. For years we had downloaded Books Online from installs, then we have BOL on a site, but those were mostly updated when a new release came.
Now we have MS Learn, and a regularly changing set of docs. If you haven’t taken advantage of these docs for SQL Server, you should. Bookmark: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/?view=sql-server-ver17&redirectedfrom=MSDN
I help change those. It’s part of my contribution as a Microsoft MVP, but it’s also something that I enjoy because it makes my life easier. This post will look at how I do this.
Note: You need a GitHub account.
A Recent Change
Someone posted a note about multi-column primary keys, noting that the docs said we could use up to 16 columns, but they were able to do 17. I went to this page, Primary and Foreign Key Constraints , where in the first bullet list, there was a 16. This was the week of 24 Nov.
Now, a week later as I write this, it says 32.
When I saw the 16, I decided to test things. I set up scenarios, I checked against multiple versions, and I verified that 32 was the right number.
Then I clicked this edit button on the page:
When I did that, I was sent to the GitHub repo for the docs, which is in the MicrosoftDocs org. You can see what I see below. A lot of this is their markdown template, and can be ignored.
On the right is a pencil edit button. I clicked that.Note this says I’ll get a fork of this repo. That’s what I want.
When I click the pencil that, I go to the same page, but without any rendering. Note I’m still in the MS repo, but the blue note at the top says my changes will be written to my repo in a new branch.
When I knew I had seen an error, I scrolled down in the page and found the list. Here we see my 32 highlighted. This said 16 a few weeks ago.
I can edit this, so I’ll change this to 64. Don’t worry, I can’t affect the live docs. When I do this, I’ll then click “commit changes” in the upper right.
After clicking this, I get a commit dialog. Copilot tries to guess what I’ve done and it’s a good start. I typically edit the description a bit.
Once this is done, and I click Propose changes, I get a pull request page. In this case, notice in the top image, I see this is going from my repo, from a specific branch, to the MS repo for comparison. I’m asking them to pull my changes.
Below this, I see the file(s) changed. In this case, one change.
I typically just click “Create pull request” for my changes and then the MS automation takes over. A form appears that shows the PR created and the status (if it can be merged). Since these are quick, usually there’s not problem with a clean merge.
I get an email from the automation thanking me for the contriution, letting me know an author has been notified.
If there are comments, I’ll get emails on those. When this happens, sometimes they let me know there is something else needed or I should amend my PR. Sometimes they tell me they’re closing the PR and incorporating the change into something else. I’ve had my change get someone thinking and they might take my idea and add something else in their own internal PR.
If someone approves my PR, they’ll add a tag from their side, and the change is merged and a rebuild happens. Here’s the email I get.
Then my change is live pretty quickly.
I probably submit 5-10 a year, almost one a month. I don’t find a lot of issues, though I do sometimes take the time to add a new example that might serve me, or others. I should do more of those.
If you want to submit your own corrections, feel free. If you don’t, and want me to do it, send me a note and I’ll submit the PR.