Bulk Data Load Using OLEDB Template Libraries

New Author! This is a fairly article that looks at how to do bulk data loading at a very (very) low level. You'll need to be able to read code to make use of this.

For SQL Server, XML Is One Answer

New author! Nick discusses why 'XML is One Answer', outlining some of what he believes are key points about using XML with SQL Server. This is a follow up (and sort of counter point) to another great article we had here on the site a couple weeks ago by Don Peterson. Good stuff!

Convert IP address to numeric equivalent

This script converts string-based IP addresses to their numeric equivalents so that it is easy to do arithmatic on them such as find an IP address that is within a range.NOTE: This function calls the split function which is included in the post.

Is XML the Answer?

New Author! Don Peterson writes his first article for us and explores why he considers XML to be...bad! There are some interesting points made here and if you've haven't thought about what XML means to you as a DBA, it's a subject worth spending some time on.

REVISED Dynamic Crosstab Query

Here is a revised version of the crosstab query I submitted last week.  This new version avoids the WHILE loop (which was used in my pervious version) and is thus COMPLETELY SET-ORIENTED for better performance.

Selecting XML out

I have a table with multiple rows for Description belonging to one Heading. For each row of data I need a .The xml should look like this: A heading 234567890123456789010 234567890123456789010 234567890123456789010   ...(to ) A heading 234567890123456789010 234567890123456789010   ...(to )

White Board, Flip Chart, or Notepad?

Andy discusses the low tech tools he uses at the office to convey problems and describe solutions. He also provides some interesting links you will want to browse.

UDF to get Day of the Year

Add carriage return every nth char

This script will take a string (8000) and add a carriage return at the closest space to nth char. e.g. You only want 50 characters per line. This will add carriage return at the closest space before the 50th character.

Creating a Dynamic Crosstab Query

Crosstab queries (also called "pivot tables") in which you know beforehand the number of column values to aggregate by, can easily be performed in T-SQL using CASE statements wrapped in the SUM function.  Where things get tricky, however, is when you don't know how many aggregation values exist, and you are required to write a […]