Product learning

Posts by

Phil Factor

Phil Factor (real name withheld to protect the guilty), aka Database Mole, has 30 years of experience with database-intensive applications.

Despite having once been shouted at by a furious Bill Gates at an exhibition in the early 1980s, he has remained resolutely anonymous throughout his career.

He is a regular contributor to Simple Talk and SQLServerCentral.

Phil Factor

21 February 2020

Phil Factor

21 February 2020

Avoid using constants in an ORDER BY clause

Phil Factor explains why an ORDER BY clause should always specify the sort columns using their names, or aliases, rather than using an integer to specify the position of a column in the SELECT list. Read more

Phil Factor

12 February 2020

Phil Factor

12 February 2020

Why you Should Always Specify Whether a Column Accepts Nulls

Phil Factor explains the factors that determine whether a column will allow null values, if you don't specify it explicitly in the column definition. If you rely on the default behavior established by your connection settings, you could be in for some nasty surprises. Read more

Phil Factor

10 February 2020

Phil Factor

10 February 2020

Database Build Breakers: Avoiding Constraint Violations during SQL Server Deployments

A common database build breaker is data that violates the conditions of any of the CHECK, UNIQUE or FOREIGN KEY constraints, and unique non-clustered indexes, designed to protect the consistency and integrity of your data. Phil Factor explain how to avoid this problem, using SQL Compare and some custom stored procedures to discover which... Read more

24 January 2020

24 January 2020

The Dangers of using Float or Real Datatypes

Floating point datatypes accommodate very big numbers but sacrifice precision. They are handy for some types of scientific calculations, but are dangerous when used more widely, because they can introduce big rounding errors. Read more

Phil Factor

21 January 2020

Phil Factor

21 January 2020

Changing SET options in a Procedure or Trigger leads to Recompilation (PE012)

Phil Factor delves into SQL Prompt's performance rule, PE012, which will advise you if it detects the use of the SET statements within a stored procedure or trigger, which might cause unnecessary recompilations, though the issue extends to other types of batches. Read more

Phil Factor

10 January 2020

Phil Factor

10 January 2020

Checking for Database Events Using Extended Events and SQL Monitor

You need to make sure that nobody tampers with your production databases, or really any databases outside Development. Even if you weren't of a nervous disposition, you'd want to know if a database was stopped or removed. You'd also be intrigued by the sudden unrehearsed addition of a database to a production server. Read more

Phil Factor

10 January 2020

Phil Factor

10 January 2020

Cloning all the Databases on a Server

Phil Factor shows uses SQL Clone and PowerShell to automatically create images of all databases on an instance, if they don't already exist, and then create or refresh clones of each one, on all your development servers. Read more

3 January 2020

3 January 2020

Removing the Square Bracket Decorations with SQL Prompt

If you avoid illegal characters and reserved words in your identifiers, you'll rarely need delimiters. Sadly, SSMS applies square bracket delimiters indiscriminately, as a precaution, when generating build scripts. Phil Factor provides a handy function that adds quoted delimiters only where they are really needed and then sits back and lets SQL Prompt strip... Read more

20 December 2019

20 December 2019

Using Aliases in SQL Prompt

Phil Factor explores the role of table aliases, explaining when they are required, and their general purpose otherwise, the need for sensible naming of aliases, and how SQL Prompt handles them. Read more

13 December 2019

13 December 2019

How to Complain Bitterly using SQL Data Generator

How to use reverse regex expressions in SQL Data Generator to fill a text column in SQL Server with fake, but very realistic complaints. Read more

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Product learning

Posts by

Phil Factor

Avoid using constants in an ORDER BY clause

Why you Should Always Specify Whether a Column Accepts Nulls

Database Build Breakers: Avoiding Constraint Violations during SQL Server Deployments

The Dangers of using Float or Real Datatypes

Changing SET options in a Procedure or Trigger leads to Recompilation (PE012)

Checking for Database Events Using Extended Events and SQL Monitor

Cloning all the Databases on a Server

Removing the Square Bracket Decorations with SQL Prompt

Using Aliases in SQL Prompt

How to Complain Bitterly using SQL Data Generator

Redgate Test Data Manager

Flyway

Redgate Monitor

Overview

Test Data Management

Automate

Monitor

Posts by Phil Factor

Posts by

Phil Factor