This series of articles will examine the purposes, uses, and optimization of cursors in SQL 2000. SQL languages are designed so groups of records, or sets, can be manipulated easily and quickly. The speed at which groups of data can be altered, updated and deleted, demonstrates why working with sets is the preferred method. However, there are places where cursors are a better choice.
2004-12-20
2,572 reads
Data cleansing is something that constantly occurs in all RDBMSes, not just SQL Server. However it's easier on some platforms than others. New Author Sureshkumar Ramakrishnan has written a script that shows how you can easily remove duplicate rows in SQL Server. Read about his technique and see if it might come in handy in your environment..
2006-03-10 (first published: 2004-12-20)
47,424 reads
Transactions in SQL Server are probably no more complicated than those in other RDBMS products, which is to say they are fairly complex. Don Peterson continues with part 3 of his series and takes a look at transaction isolation levels and how they interact with multiple connections and their impact on locking.
2004-12-02
15,950 reads
Have you ever wondered if you could start the execution of a stored procedure (SP) asynchronously from some T-SQL code? What I mean is starting the SP in the background and continuing on with the next line of code in your T-SQL script without waiting for the execution of the SP to complete. If so, then this article might be of some interest to you.
2004-12-01
3,279 reads
E
very day a developer somewhere needs to write code to iterate through SQL Server™ system objects, query and update tables in linked servers, handle optimistic concurrency, and retrieve column and stored procedure metadata. In this month's column, I will address these and other T-SQL development scenarios based on some of the questions I most frequently receive from readers.
2004-11-23
1,686 reads
There are plenty of good sources of information about how to deploy SQL Server in a secure fashion. However, these resources are often targeted at database administrators tasked with securing already developed applications. In addition, there is a rich body of information that discusses writing secure .NET and ASP.NET code, including .NET code that accesses SQL Server. However, many of these resources focus on the data access code that runs on the application servers rather than the Transact-SQL (T-SQL) code that executes within SQL Server. Developing T-SQL code that runs securely on SQL Server is the primary focus of this column.
2004-11-22
2,400 reads
After reading a recent article on identifying islands and gaps in sequential numbers, one of our readers was inspired to develop a more efficient solution for fragmented data. New Author Goce Smilevski brings us his solution and supporting data to show how this can be done better.
2021-04-16 (first published: 2004-11-22)
11,358 reads
SQL Server's Data Transformation Services (DTS) is a fantastic tool for importing data from any type of source. However even with this tool, you sometimes need more flexibility than it appears to have, especially if the data formats are unknown far enough in advance. New author Chris Cathers has developed a technique that allows him to be extremely flexible without causing too many headaches down the road.
2004-10-18
9,597 reads
As you know, relational databases are set-based and aren't particularly suited for row-at-a-time processing. However, in situations with heavily fragmented data (lots of gaps), you may find that row-based processing does better than set-based processing. Alexander Kozak demonstrates.
2004-10-12
1,833 reads
Comparing two SQL Server tables to determine if the data is the same ought to be pretty simple. But then again, vendors like Red Gate Software sell tools to help you do it, so perhaps it isn't so simple. Author Leo Peysakhovich has to do this on a regular basis and none of the 3rd party products appear to work for him. Read his thoughts and samples on how he handles this at his job.
2004-09-22
11,280 reads
By James Serra
Originally published April 2022; substantially updated July 2026. This post is a complete replacement...
The idea behind Azure SQL Developer is for anyone to build, iterate, and test...
By Steve Jones
I’m sure many of you are using AI regularly, perhaps chatting, perhaps using some...
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If I use the -k parameter with a number after it, what does this change in SQL Server?
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