Excellent article!

Regarding the commission example, to consider something specific, I would prefer to explicitly know that a commission does not apply.  Therefore, I might add a "IsCommissionEligible" BIT column.  This is, most...

You also need to add an ORDER BY, otherwise you can't be sure the code rows will be returned in sequence:

SELECT ...

ORDER BY id, colid

If the base table is small, you can do this:

SELECT *

FROM #tmpSumTest

UNION ALL

SELECT CAST(SUM(number) AS DECIMAL(19, 8))

FROM #tmpSumTest

If not small, you can make the main query a subquery, adding...

Yes, you'll have to change the query for that.

To get tables with '%school%' in them:

1) AND must match all the other criteria, do this:

WHERE o.name LIKE N'%school%'

AND o.xtype = ''U'' AND o.name...

D'OH, sorry, change the TINYINTs to SMALLINTs.

I assume you know the column type is char/varchar/nchar/nvarchar.  If not, remove the check for "%char%"; if you know it's varchar, naturally you can change it to "%varchar%".

For one db:

SELECT...

> Kill connections is pretty good. <

No, it's not - ALTER DATABASE should be used.

And if you really want  to issue specific KILLs, you can do it something...

Sorry, correct, I mis-read the original q.

Try looking at table "syscolumns".  It includes not just table columns but also stored procedure columns .

For example:

SELECT *

FROM syscolumns WITH (NOLOCK)

WHERE id...

Change @Qry from VARCHAR(5000) to VARCHAR(8000).

I too don't like a "t"|"tb[l]" prefix, no least of all because a view can be changed to a table and vice-versa.  Column prefixes, of any type, are even worse.

I do...

No, "wrong situation" refers primarily to an application being added to the server.  And not necessarily a full-blown business app either. 

Say, instead, Java applets are added to the server. ...

>> How much memory does SQL use on startup? <<

I disagree about the relevance of this q.  This knowledge is not only useful but vital for a senior DBA.  Otherwise,...

Split the varchar and int portions for storage purposes only.  You can still combine them for display, etc..

So, create two new columns, one varchar and one (small)int, copy the existing...

I recommend (Philip) Pratt's "A Guide to SQL".  I used it for db classes I taught and thought it was excellent for students.