Introducing the Set-based Loop
Set-based programming doesn’t mean “no loops” or a single statement. Finding out the best ways to traverse a full hierarchy.
How to generate T-SQL scripts in SQL Server Management Studio with the collation settings
SQL Server collation is an important setting when creating database objects. One of the best ways to ensure that collation issues do not happen is to ensure that the collation settings are properly specified in the script that generates the database objects - Siddharth Mehta demonstrates how to do this.
A Software Warranty
Steve Jones says that developers should take responsibility for the code they deploy, perhaps with a warranty of sorts inside their company.
Taking Pictures from HTML
Sometimes a request from a user who doesn't appreciate the limitations of the technology can jolt you into discovering that an application feature that was, until recently, difficult to achieve is suddenly relatively easy. Dino was asked to allow the user to take photographs and associate them with an item of work. After he'd recovered from the shock, he decided that it was achievable, and now describes how he went on and did it.
Do you have DBA syndrome?
Sometimes DBAs become resistant to change. When they lose focus on their full purpose they may have DBA syndrome.
Pattern Matching : More Fun When I Was a Kid
Aaron Bertrand runs some tests to challenge an assertion that CHARINDEX is always faster at pattern matching than LEFT and LIKE.
PowerShell Solutions - Working with files
When we administer a SQL Database, we always have to work with files. This new article shows how to handle them using PowerShell.
Questioning the Interviewer
Asking questions in an interview is important, but there can be issues. Steve Jones talks a little about how to approach this.
Managing SQL Server Backup and Restore History Information
Greg Larson explains that SQL Server provides a couple of different ways to delete backup and restore history. If you want to remove backup and restore information for all databases based on a date you can use the sp_delete_backuphistory system stored procedure. Or you can use the system stored procedure named sp_delete_database_backuphistory if you want to remove all backup and restore history for a specific database.
Coming Attacks
What happens if we can't access the Internet? We should be prepared, at home and work. Steve Jones has a few comments.
Blogs
Rethinking Index Maintenance: Why avg_fragmentation_in_percent Is Outdated and What You Should Do Instead
By Tim Radney
As a SQL Server DBA with years of experience tuning production environments, I’ve seen...
Microsoft Build 2026 announcements
By James Serra
Once again there were a number of Microsoft Build announcements related to data and...
T-SQL Tuesday #199: Roundup
A good week ago I hosted the monthly T-SQL Tuesday blog party. I invited...
Forums
Changes, Happiness, and a Few Tears
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Changes, Happiness, and a Few...
BCP on Linux
Comments posted to this topic are about the item BCP on Linux
You Probably Don't Need a Vector Database
Comments posted to this topic are about the item You Probably Don't Need a...
Question of the Day
BCP on Linux
When running bcp on Linux, what is the field terminator?
See possible answers