Users call and complain and by the time you get to the server, everything looks fine. Even running Profiler sometimes doesn't capture the information. Author Roy Carlson found a solution, a script that you can give to users to dump whatever information you need to an Excel file.
2005-07-12
8,713 reads
Get some big performance gains by removing cursors from your code. New author Clinton Herring brings us a couple hints as he shows how two cursors were replaced in his code, resulting in 80 minutes of processing time dropping to 12!
2006-04-07 (first published: 2005-07-11)
50,067 reads
Two in a month? Steve Jones brings us another mistake made by a DBA in SQL Server. Everyone makes them and we may not like to admit to them, everyone that we print hopefully helps a few other SQL Server DBAs avoid that particular mistake. This one looks at the dangers of sorting by aliases.
2005-07-06
13,507 reads
Working with NULL functions can be tricky in T-SQL and SQL Server 2000. If you add in aggregates, you need to be sure you understand what the behavior will be or you might report incorrect values to a user. Michael Coles has written a new article that talks about how NULL affects your results.
2008-04-04 (first published: 2005-07-05)
106,421 reads
In SQL Server 2000 or any relational database, the concept of NULL can be both confusing and hazardess to your employment. Not understanding how to work with NULLs can lead to incorrect responses to queries and poor business decisions being made. New author Michael Coles brings us four rules that can help you work with NULL values in your tables.
2008-03-28 (first published: 2005-06-27)
94,985 reads
SQL Server 2000 and Transact-SQL have many features, but one of the most often asked for features has been the implementation of some sort of array data type. This basic programming concept is notably absent from the development platform and results in many headaches and frustrations for DBAs. New author Alex Grinberg brings us his techniques for simulating arrays in SQL Server 2000.
2008-02-15 (first published: 2005-05-16)
145,017 reads
SQL Server Database administrators often copy(refer Fig 1.0) huge files, such as Full backup files and transaction log backup files from production to QA or from production to development environment and so on. Sometimes they need to copy source data files for importing. If they want to restore those Full backups or transaction log backup files or import those huge source files, they have to wait until the copy is complete.
2005-05-06
2,909 reads
Or at least the types of your data. New author Roy Carlson was working in SQL Server 2000 to calculate some values based on row counts, sales amounts, etc. and discovered some interesting results. Without his sharp eye, a number of individuals would have been upset by the resulting lack of commissions, as may some of your clients. Read about some potential problems in your calculations if you are not careful with your data types.
2005-04-04
6,675 reads
SQL Server 2000 is a self tuning, self balancing application that performs wonderfully under a wide variety of loads and conditions with a minimal of administrative tuning. However there are some things that you can do when building T-SQL code and working with SQL Server to maximime performance and assist the query optimizer in selecting the best query plans. Leo Peysakhovich brings us the first part of his series looking at some different scenarios and how you can structure your code to achieve
2005-03-08
16,466 reads
This month's topic is one that often baffles inexperienced SQL coders. We will look at the GROUP BY clause, and then the difference between conditions placed in the WHERE clause, and the HAVING clause. I have used MySQL to test all of the examples, but most of them should work without any problems on other DBMS' too.
2005-02-16
4,182 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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