Phil Factor demonstrates the correct use of the RETURN keyword in stored procedures or batches, to pass back a non-zero RETURN code to the calling process, informing it of the error. He also explains some of its misuses.
2019-09-12
Phil Factor illustrates the 'quirks' of the SQL_VARIANT datatype and why it's best to investigate when SQL Prompt alerts you to its use. It is only safe to store data as a SQL_VARIANT, if you explicitly convert it to its true type before you use it.
2019-08-08
The SQL Prompt Best Practice rule checks whether a comparison or expression includes a NULL literal ('NULL'), which in SQL Server, rather than result in an error, will simply always produce a NULL result. Phil Factor explains how to avoid this, and other SQL NULL-related calamities.
2019-07-30
Many production databases have failed embarrassingly as a result of INSERT code that omits a column list, usually in mysterious ways and often without generating errors. Phil Factor demonstrates the problem, and advocates a 'defense-in-depth' approach to writing SQL, in order to avoid it.
2019-05-28
If Prompt warns you of use of the asterisk, or 'star' (*), in SELECT statements, consider replacing it with an explicit column list. It will prevent unnecessary network load and query performance problems, and avoid problems if the column order changes, when inserting into a table.
2019-05-27
Last year I started to get alerts from Microsoft Repos that someone had put a piece of security information in their code that pertained to one of my Azure services. At first I was worried, but then I realized this was the public version of AdventureWorks we maintain in Azure. We've published the login so […]
2019-04-17
250 reads
There may be some people who enjoy repetitive typing, but Grant Fritchey doesn't. He's always preferred SQL Prompt. The standard snippets suit developers fine but aren't so DBA-oriented, so he set about asking the SQLServerCentral community what they typed in the most, and set about producing a set of DBA snippets with the results.
2015-11-20
4,144 reads
Extend SQL Prompt's functionality by connecting your snippets to version control
2015-07-09
2,040 reads
This SQL Prompt tip shows you how code highlighting makes it easier to find which items match up with each other.
2015-11-25 (first published: 2015-01-26)
3,326 reads
A quick SQL Prompt tip to automatically add semicolons to your code.
2015-11-18 (first published: 2015-01-20)
5,846 reads
Fabric deployment pipelines look like they solve CI/CD for Fabric content, especially for people...
By Steve Jones
We aren’t the only company that does this, but Redgate Software does try to...
By James Serra
Microsoft Fabric makes it wonderfully easy to put many analytics workloads on one platform....
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The New World Of AI...
Thanks in advance, I'm trying to avoid using IIF for performance reasons, but the...
Security has long been a problem for me. Every time I think I understand...
What does this return on SQL Server 2025?
select bit_count(null)See possible answers