External Article

Getting Started with mssql-python for Data Developers

rogrammatic interaction with SQL Server or Azure SQL from a Python script is possible using a driver. A popular driver has been pyodbc that can be used standalone or with a SQLAlchemy wrapper. SQLAlchemy on its own is the Python SQL toolkit and Object Relational Mapper for developers. In the end of 2025 Microsoft released v1 of their own Python SQL driver called mssql-python. How do you get started using mssql-python for programmatic access to your SQL Server?

SQLServerCentral Article

Fun with JSON

Last year, I used a lot of JSON to exchange data between systems. There are several ways to extract data from a JSON file, but there is one specific, probably less-used possibility that I’d like to highlight. For one project, I received JSON files containing a variable number of parameters and their values. If I […]

SQLServerCentral Article

Supervised versus Unsupervised Training of an Artificial Neural Network

Supervised training of an artificial neural network entails training the network to associate defined patterns with specified labels. Optical Character Recognition is an example of supervised training, where each input pattern is mapped to an alphanumeric character. In unsupervised training, a neural network learns to extract recurring patterns from noisy data. One of the earliest […]

Blogs

Cost Visibility: Tracking and Analysing Your Cloud Spend

By

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced in cloud operations is maintaining clear visibility...

Whiling away an afternoon, thinking

By

I come to Heathrow often. Today is likely somewhere close to 60 trips to...

Black Box vs. Gray Box vs. White Box Testing

By

If your organization is spending money, then meaningful results are a must. Pen testing...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Fun with JSON II

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Fun with JSON II

Changing Data Types

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Changing Data Types

Answering Questions On Dropped Columns

By Cláudio Silva

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Answering Questions On Dropped Columns

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Fun with JSON II

I have some data in a table: 

CREATE TABLE #test_data
(
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(100),
    birth_date DATE
);

-- Step 2: Insert rows  
INSERT INTO #test_data
VALUES
(1, 'Olivia', '2025-01-05'),
(2, 'Emma', '2025-03-02'),
(3, 'Liam', '2025-11-15'),
(4, 'Noah', '2025-12-22');
If I run this query, how many rows are returned? 
SELECT t1.[key] AS row,
       t2.*
FROM OPENJSON(
     (
         SELECT t.* FROM #test_data AS t FOR JSON PATH
     )
             ) t1
    CROSS APPLY OPENJSON(t1.value) t2;

See possible answers