Understanding Deadlock Victim Selection in SQL Server
A short introduction to how deadlocks work and how you can affect their behavior inside your system.
2026-05-01
2,462 reads
T-SQL
T-SQL Trigonometric Functions in SQL Server
Introduction SQL Server includes several built-in mathematical functions that allow developers to perform complex calculations directly within queries. Among these are trigonometric functions such as SIN(), COS(), and TAN(), which are useful in scenarios involving engineering calculations, geographic data processing, simulations, and analytics. Although these functions are straightforward to use, developers occasionally encounter unexpected results […]
2026-04-29
2,167 reads
Creating a Simple and Flexible Random Password Generator in SQL Server
Generating temporary passwords is a common requirement in many applications. Users may need to reset a forgotten password, new accounts may require an initial password, or developers may generate test credentials. While password generation is often implemented in application code, doing it directly in SQL Server provides clear advantages. It centralizes the logic, ensures consistency […]
2026-04-10
1,810 reads
Answering Questions On Dropped Columns
Answering a couple of questions from the previous posts about dropping columns.
2026-03-18
1,987 reads
Elements of the SQL Server Update Statement
Learn how to use the UPDATE statement, along with a few things to be aware of when changing data.
2025-04-11
1,696 reads
Determining Whether Home Addresses Fall Within a Tornado Polygon Using Spatial Functions
Geographic information systems (GIS) play a critical role in emergency response planning and risk assessment. One of the key challenges in this field is determining whether a specific location falls within an area of interest. This capability is especially valuable for property and casualty (P&C) insurers, who need to assess their insured property exposure when severe weather events such as tornadoes occur.
2025-03-04 (first published: 2025-03-03)
2,703 reads
Manage Elastic jobs in Azure using Azure Elastic Jobs Manager
Microsoft Azure offers Azure Elastic Job agent as a managed service, enabling efficient scheduling of T-SQL workloads on Azure SQL Databases. Learn how to configure the service in this article.
2024-06-07 (first published: 2024-05-24)
1,678 reads
2024-03-29
8,943 reads
The difference between BIN2 and Case-Sensitive collations in SQL
Here you will learn about the key differences between the binary and SQL/Windows collations. You will see that even with all sensitivity flags enabled, SQL/Windows collation cannot behave the same way as the binary collations.
2024-03-15
1,962 reads
Writing SQL Server code with AI using GitHub Copilot
Introduction In this article, we will see how to work with GitHub Copilot. GitHub copilot is an interesting plug-in that generates code using AI. The technology is from Microsoft and OpenAI. We will show how to install Copilot, and how to generate SQL Server code (T-SQL) using Copilot. First, we will answer some FAQs about Copilot […]
2024-02-12
13,532 reads
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Question of the Day
Detecting Deadlocks Quickly
In the Database Engine, when a deadlock is detected, what does the detection interval shrink to (in time)?
See possible answers