Credit Card Number Validation Escalar Function

Evaluate credit card numbers based on ISO 2894 algorithm.

An Urgent Ad Hoc Report

In this new article, Yakov Shlafman shows us how he wrote a quick ad hoc report of expenses so that he could leave on time one day.

T-SQL: Why “It Depends”

Why does everyone use "it depends" as an answer to many T-SQL questions? Bob Hovious brings us a short example of how performance can change based on data loads for the same code.

What's the count?

COUNT_BIG

Procedural, Semi-Procedural and Declarative Programming in SQL

A lot of the time, the key to making SQL databases perform well is to take a break from the keyboard and rethink the way of approaching the problem; and rethinking in terms of a set-based declarative approach. Joe takes a simple discussion abut a problem with a UDF to illustrate the point that ingrained procedural reflexes can often prevent us from seeing simpler set-based techniques.

Cast vs. Convert

Counting spaces with datalength

Randomizing Result Sets with NEWID

Seth Delconte brings us a technique to solve a common request. Using the NEWID function to return a random record from a result set.

Numeric or Not Numeric