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The Many Uses of Coalesce in SQL Server

Many times people come across the Coalesce function and think that it is just a more powerful form of ISNULL. In actuality, I have found it to be one of the most useful functions with the least documentation. In this tip, I will show you the basic use of Coalesce and also some features you probably never new existed.

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Deploying Database Developments

When a team is developing a database application, it is a mistake to believe that deployment is a simple task. It isn’t. It has to be planned, and scripted. Alexander Karmanov describes many of the problems you’re likely to meet, and provides an example solution that aims to save the DBA from the nightmare complexity of an unplanned deployment.

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Question of the Day

An Unusual Identity

What values are returned when I run this code?

CREATE TABLE dbo.IdentityTest2
(
     id NUMERIC(10,0) IDENTITY(10,10) PRIMARY KEY,
     somevalue VARCHAR(20)
)
GO
INSERT dbo.IdentityTest2
(
    somevalue
)
VALUES
( 'Steve')
, ('Bill')
GO
SELECT top 10
 id
 FROM dbo.IdentityTest2

See possible answers