External Article

Clean unused space when a variable-length column is dropped from a SQL Server table or indexed view

Whenever rows or columns are deleted from a table, SQL Server reuses space to accommodate new data. However, this is not the case when a variable length column is deleted. The space used by this type of column is not reclaimed automatically. Variable length columns can be of data types varchar, nvarchar, varchar(max), nvarchar(max), varbinary, varbinary(max), text, ntext, image, sql_variant, and xml. In this tip, I have tried to put forth a solution to reclaim this space and this should work for SQL 2005 and later versions.

Technical Article

SQL Transparent Hierarchical Processing of Relational, XML and IMS Data

The SQL-92 standard introduced the LEFT Outer Join operation which offers a powerful alternative to standard relational processing to perform full hierarchical processing naturally and inherently. This enables SQL to transparently integrate relational data with XML, IMS and other forms of legacy hierarchical data. This can also allow the so far overlooked integration of IMS and legacy data with the Internet and XML, and visa versa.

SQLServerCentral Editorial

PAAS

Platform as a service, a new way of looking at applications. It's analogous to SAAS and IAAS, which can improve the efficiency of the software purchase or the hardware acquisition process. Steve Jones notes that this is something he'd like to see for database platforms.

External Article

Send email in a tabular format using SQL Server database mail

Some of our SQL Servers contain tables with summarized data (summarized on a weekly / monthly / quarterly basis). Previously this data was emailed as a flat file attachment to the recipients. I was asked to convert this in such a way that the email itself contains the table data. This way the recipients would be able to look at the data in a tabular format, making it easier for readability. Hence we arrived at the question of how to send email from SQL Server with data in a tabular format.

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Multiple Deployment Processes

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Deployment Processes

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Question of the Day

Upgrading Admin Queries

I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?  

See possible answers