SQLServerCentral Article

Practical Uses of PatIndex

String manipulation is not one of the strong points of T-SQL, but there are some functions that can greatly assist you with searching and working with character values. New author Robert Davis brings us a look at PATINDEX, one of the search functions and also explains the differences between it and the often used CHARINDEX.

External Article

Survival tips for PowerPoint

there are occasions in all of our working lives when sitting through a PowerPoint presentation is inevitable. Fortunately, there are techniques for feigning interest, many of which have developed over hundreds of years. All you need is a handful of like-minded colleagues with a sporting attitude

SQLServerCentral Article

What's new with SSIS?

With the release of SQL Server 2005, there have been many changes in the product, but probably none as dramatic as the changes to the ETL tool. Data Transformation Services has become SQL Server Integration Services, or SSIS. It has been completely redesigned with a whole new paradigm for developing data movements. Kathi Kellenberger brings us a short introduction to this new tool.

Blogs

Who Are You Doing It For?

By

But as I've matured over the years, I came to realize that I needed...

Presenting Twice in May 2026

By

I will be presenting my latest session, Documenting Your Work for Worry-Free Vacations, in-person...

Finding the Next Sequence Value: #SQLNewBlogger

By

I saw a question asking about the next sequence value and decided to try...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

DB Design Methods

By mjdemaris

I've read a few posts regarding what we use to design DB models and...

Auto Update Statistics not triggering on filtered indexes

By Leo.Miller

I've got a table with 186,703,969 rows, about 300GB of data. There are several...

What is the difference between SQL Server and SQL Database?

By kamiiteore

I created a SQL Database in Azure Portal but I've just noticed it also...

Visit the forum

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