Have you ever lost data when using CAST or CONVERT in T-SQL? There is an interesting behavior that probably has caused problems for quite a few people, and one you should be aware of. New author Aries J. Manlig brings us a look at this documented, but mostly unheard of behavior.
2005-12-22
10,938 reads
They are a basic type of query that every DBA and developer should be able to write, but aggregates are sometimes misunderstood and result in strange behaviors and results. Kathi Kellenberger brings us a tutorial on what aggregate queries are and a few hints on how to become more proficient at writing them.
2007-10-02 (first published: 2005-12-19)
37,450 reads
For many SQL Server 2000 DBAs working with text columns in T-SQL is no different than any other datatype. But there are some tricks when you work with very large values that you need to know. Leo Peysakhovich brings us some advanced queries that you might need if you work with large XML documents as he does.
2005-12-07
16,616 reads
Most time we probably think that lots of our code is confusing, but when working with data values that need or contain quotes, it can get especially confusing. Sean McCown looks at a method for making this code easier to read.
2005-11-15
8,801 reads
How do you find the next business day? What is a next business day? Holidays, country specific issues, etc. all come into play with many business functions and it can be a complicated process. New author Rob Scholl brings us a recursive function in TSQL to help solve this problem.
2005-11-03
13,597 reads
In testing your applications, one of the things that you often want to do is run through a list of all possible values for some particular piece of code. Eli Leiba brings us a method for autmatically generating all the possible permutations for input values.
2005-10-19
20,398 reads
This tip continues the system stored procedure series with a routine to find occurrences of a string in the character columns of selected tables.
2005-09-30
3,781 reads
One of the lesser used features of SQL Server is the work with text variables. These data types cannot always be manipulated with regular T-SQL. Raj Vasant brings us an introductory look at the various functions you can use to work with these fields.
2005-09-28
18,161 reads
You may never need to work with them, but if you do then you will quickly realize how complicated barcodes can be. Michael Coles recently had a project and developer a toolkit to actually print barcodes from SQL Server.
2005-09-13
20,364 reads
SQL Server Database administrators often generate SQL Statements and execute the generated SQL statement in order to simplify certain tasks. It has always been a twin operation. This article illustrates how to use un-documented stored procedures to execute the generated SQL Statements directly.
2005-08-29
3,490 reads
By SQLPals
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In Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2025, if I run this, what is returned?
SELECT '[' + SUBSTRING('Steve Jones', 7) + ']' See possible answers