Male, Female and The Other One (NULL)
When programming in T-SQL, the impact of NULL values can be severe in many cases, especially aggregates. New Author Peter Ward brings us a great explanation on how NULLs can impact things like SUM operations.
How to Set Up a SQL Server Stress Test Environment in 8 Steps: Lessons
This article is the third in a series of four where I share my findings on baselining, monitoring, stress testing and performance tuning. It builds on the foundations of my previous articles on baselining and monitoring.
SQL Server 2005 Integration Services, Part 2: Developing Custom Compon
The first phase of Project REAL included the migration of existing SQL Server 2000 DTS packages to SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) for a large electronic retailer. One source of information for the data warehouse was from TLog files, which contained data from point-of-sale cash registers in stores. TLog files store data in packed decimal format. To extract and transform this data into a format suitable for loading into the relational data warehouse tables, it was necessary to unpack and parse the files. To achieve this, custom pipeline components were implemented to read and transform the data by extending the SSIS object model. This paper discusses what we learned while implementing the pipeline components for extracting and parsing data from the TLog parser
Detecting Performance Issues With Sysprocesses
Analyzing and detecting performance problems is a big part of a DBA's job and also one of the more difficult ones to learn. New author Terry Troisi brings us a few things that you can use the next time your server spikes to 100% CPU.
Analysis Services 2005 protocol - XMLA over TCP/IP
It has been widely publicized that Analysis Services 2005 uses XML for Analysis 1.1 (XMLA) as its only network protocol for communication between client and server. XMLA is standard public protocol defined by XMLA council and full description can be found at www.xmla.org
Measuring SQL Performance
One thing that often amazes me is that many SQL Server developers do not actually measure the performance of their queries. Many of them thought that you needed external tools, more or less complicated, to run against your server, and they did not have the time or inclination to learn and try these. This article will describe a couple of much easier methods of measuring performance of queries.
Database Geek of the Week - Peter DeBetta
Peter runs DeBetta Software , a consulting firm that develops data-driven enterprise solutions. He is also a programming instructor for Wintellect, a training and consulting company, and a frequent speaker on SQL Server and other subjects.
Think Twice Before You Convert
Have you ever lost data when using CAST or CONVERT in T-SQL? There is an interesting behavior that probably has caused problems for quite a few people, and one you should be aware of. New author Aries J. Manlig brings us a look at this documented, but mostly unheard of behavior.
Speeding up the VS/SQL User Interface Load Time
A frustrating thing for those who open and close Query Analyzer all day long about the new Visual Studio interface for SQL Server is the load speed. This quick blog shows you how to speed up the load time with a switch change.
Blogs
Who’s the Winningest Coach (with AI Help)
By Steve Jones
I was listening to the radio the other day and the hosts were discussing...
Learning from Mistakes: T-SQL Tuesday #194
By Steve Jones
We’re a week late, once again my fault. I was still coming out of...
Stupid Things I Did With AI: ASCII Art
By Steve Jones
I ran across this article recently (https://www.gatesnotes.com/meet-bill/source-code/reader/microsoft-original-source-code) and it has a great opening piece...
Forums
Learning From Breakage
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Python in Action to Auto-Generate an Optimized PostgreSQL Index Strategy
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Adding and Dropping Columns I
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Question of the Day
Adding and Dropping Columns I
I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList] ( [CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1), [CityName] [varchar] (30) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOI decide to add two new columns for the StateProvince and Country. What code should I use? See possible answers