SQLServerCentral Article

Handling Zero Byte Files in DTS

SQL Server 2005 has substantially enhanced its ETL capabilities, but many people will still be working with DTS in SQL Server 2000 for many years. New author James Greaves brings us a technique for working with imports and handling files that might not have any data.

Technical Article

Healthcare Data Models Matter

Healthcare applications come and go, but data live on forever. We’ve seen that since the beginning of the computer industry; when we move from legacy systems into more “modern” architectures, we often leave behind applications, but we almost always take along the data into the future. Even though data are so important, we in health-IT don’t seem to spend the quality time necessary to structure our schemas and databases in such a way as to make it easier to maintain in the future. We often don’t design our data models solidly, and we don’t test them well by putting them through simulations or design them for multiple versions.

SQLServerCentral Article

Lookup Table Madness

Are you mad? Not angry, more like crazy when it comes to designing databases in SQL Server? Don Peterson has met a few people he thinks are just that when it comes to building lookup tables. Does it stem from poor understanding of database design? Or do you disagree? Read Don's case against this particular design practice.

Technical Article

Free SSIS Events and Code Camp

There are a few upcoming SQL\SSIS\Developer events coming up in the next week. Andy Warren and Brian Knight will be speaking at Code Camp in Orlando (a free full day event) and Brian will be doing a SSIS event in Philadelphia. For more information, see this blog post.

Blogs

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Forums

Database file shrink issue.

By Tac11

Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...

The North Star for the Year

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...

Multiple Escape Characters

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters

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Question of the Day

Multiple Escape Characters

In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):

SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned?

See possible answers