Time is a precious commodity, and so much of our time is dedicated to working. IT professionals often have jobs with good benefits, including generous paid time off. It’s important to get away from work to relax and recharge, but, sometimes, it’s difficult to take those days that belong to us. Even when we do […]
2021-07-17
116 reads
Leaving aside, for a second, Freud’s psychoanalytical definitions, the term “ego” generally refers to a person’s sense of self, and their self-esteem. In casual usage, however, it usually appears in the adjectival form, “egotistical” (most often followed by “jerk”). You don’t need to be a jerk to be a DBA; humility is important. However, ego is important […]
2021-06-26
306 reads
Of all the valuable attributes of a DBA, from passion to humility to practicality, perhaps one of the most important attributes may turn out to be the most seemingly nebulous: foresight. According to Free Dictionary, foresight is the "perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred". Foresight does not come naturally to most people, as the […]
2021-05-15
339 reads
Releases of on-premises SQL Server arrived quite rapidly for a few years with seven releases during the years spanning 2008 and 2019. While it has technically been less than two years since SQL Server 2019 reached general availability in November 2019, it feels like ages since we have heard any news about what’s coming next. […]
2021-04-24
1,844 reads
2021-04-10
149 reads
Databases don't manage themselves, but Steve sees this as an opportunity, not a problem.
2021-03-20
114 reads
In 2008, I managed to achieve the goal of becoming a Microsoft Certified Trainer. Once I achieved the status, Microsoft shipped me a binder with dozens of DVDs containing lab VMs and class materials for all the current classes. At some point, instead of receiving DVDs, you were expected to download images which was quite […]
2021-03-13
183 reads
I frequently use Common Table Expressions (CTEs) when I demo windowing functions and get questions about them. Windowing functions are limited to the SELECT and ORDER BY clause which means that you can’t filter or group on them directly. Using a CTE is one way to separate the logic of the query into multiple steps […]
2021-02-27
5,408 reads
Each of us can inspire and be a role model for others. Steve notes that the WIT group is doing that with an event on March 5th.
2021-02-13
127 reads
I’ve been digging through the 18 years’ worth of articles, editorials, blogs, contests, interviews, promotions, and announcements over at Simple Talk. There are over 5000 posts, and many are quite outdated, especially those announcing beta versions of software or other time-sensitive content. Some articles haven’t seen the light of day for 10 years, yet some […]
2021-02-06
128 reads
By Steve Jones
I caught this interesting item over on Pinal Dave’s blog: Eleven Interview Questions that...
By Hemantgiri
I use color-coded connections in SSMS to distinguish Production, Pre-Production, UAT, and Development. But...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Split Large Queries in Athena...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Finding Trailing Spaces
I have some data in a SQL Server 2025 database. It looks like this for the dbo.Customer table:
CustomerID CustomerName PreferredName 1 Steve Steve 2 Andy Andy 3 Brian Brian 4 Allan Allan 5 Devin Devin 6 Steve Steve 7 Sally SallyI want to detect which names have a single trailing space. The CustomerName is a varchar() and the PreferredName is a CHAR(). Does this query detect the problem rows?
SELECT
CustomerID,
CustomerName,
PreferredName
FROM Customer
WHERE CustomerName <> RTRIM(CustomerName)
OR PreferredName <> RTRIM(PreferredName); See possible answers