T-SQL can be a complex language to work within and code solutions with. Author Stephen Lasham brings us a twist on his last solution of extracting a string from within another string. Read about his method of working with strings in T-SQL.
2004-09-13
7,862 reads
NULL values in columns can indicate a few things, the value isn't known, it's not yet been filled in, or perhaps, as Leo Peysakhovich argues, the column isn't being used? How many SQL Server tables do you have with extra tables and columns that are not being used? Or maybe never have been? This article looks at a statistical analysis of columns using NULLs to determine if you might be able to remove certain columns.
2004-08-25
9,324 reads
SQL Server can grow to encompass hundreds of databases on a single server, each having hundreds or thousands of objects within it. A truly scalable RDBMS. However, how many times have you been searching through the Object Browser in QA or the left pane in Enterprise Manager searching for an object? New Author Ashish Kaushal gives us a method to easily search your server for that long lost object.
2004-08-17
19,374 reads
T-SQL is a powerful language, enabling you to handle many different types of set based operations. But having flexible WHERE clauses isn't something that many DBAs deal with on a daily basis. New Author Sotiris Filippidis brings us an article on how you can structure a WHERE clause to handle all types of strange business logic without using dynamic SQL. Read on to learn more about his technique.
2007-09-28 (first published: 2004-07-26)
40,131 reads
Using sysforeignkeys to discover SQL Server circular relationships. Have you ever tried this? Most of us probably haven't, but Jeffrey Yao often needs to reverse engineer databases for his clients. Here's a followup to his first article where he presents another of his techniques for doing a little detective work in your databases.
2004-06-30
7,117 reads
String manipulation in SQL Server or T-SQL can be a challenage. There are multiple ways to accomplish every task and often learning a new one may spark some creativity in yourself or teach you a better way to accomplish an old task. New Author Stephen Lasham brings us his technique for extracting a string that is delimited from within a larger string. Something I'm sure we'll all have use for in the future.
2004-06-14
23,215 reads
Error handling in SQL Server 2000 is tricky. And it isn't the most robust system in the world. Stefan Popovski started a series on error handling using @@error and xact_abort. Here's the second installment of this series looking at error handling in nested stored procedures.
2004-06-08
10,040 reads
The error handling in SQL Server leaves something to be desired, especially compared with other RDBMSes and languages. The standard method of testing for errors can leave your code bloated and hard to read. Stefan Popovski looks at another method of handling errors.
2004-04-21
8,364 reads
In this article by Steve Jones, he shows you how to manipulate strings.
2026-02-04 (first published: 2004-04-05)
17,785 reads
Dinesh looks at the date functions, how to work with time zones (or not), and does a brief comparison to see how you do similar tasks in Oracle.
2003-12-22
15,266 reads
Forgive me for the title. Mentally I’m 12. When I started my current day...
By Steve Jones
One of the things a customer asked recently about Redgate Data Modeler was how...
By Steve Jones
For a number of years, we’ve produced the State of the Database Landscape report,...
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In SQL Server 2025, what is returned by this code:
SELECT EDIT_DISTANCE('Steve', 'Stan')
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