Exploring New SQL Prompt Features in SQL Toolbelt and SQL Toolbelt Essentials

Roseanna Whitelegg explores new SQL Prompt functionality that has been added to SQL Toolbelt and SQL Toolbelt Essentials to help teams increase their productivity, improve code quality, and make collaboration easier. Read more

Exploring Auto-fix in SQL Code Analysis

Phil Factor presents a useful but slightly flawed 'table report' script as an adventure playground for exploring SQL Code analysis issues. He demonstrates use of the auto-fix feature, to arrive at a pristine script free from wavy green underlines. Read more

Managing, Editing and Comparing SQL Code Analysis Settings

If you need to manage multiple code analysis settings files, per team or database, you'll want a good way to document and manage the files, and to compare two files to see what changed. Read more

Managing Cross-Database Object References (EI016, EI026, EI027)

Phil Factor explains cross database and cross-server references, how to find them in your code, and when it's better to avoid hard-coding these references and use synonyms instead. Read more

Questions about SQL Prompt you were too shy to ask

Phil Factor answers some questions you've been itching to ask about SQL Prompt, covering ranked code completion suggestions and auto-fixing SQL code smells, and suggesting where in the tool to find other nuggets of hidden treasure. Read more

Tracking use of Deprecated SQL Server Features

Phil Factor explains how to use Dynamic Management Views and Extended Events to track use of deprecated SQL Server syntax on working SQL Server databases, as well as SQL Prompt and SQL Change Automation to detect its use during database development. Read more

Never Create Columns with ANSI_PADDING set to OFF

There is no good reason for having ANSI_PADDING set to OFF when you create tables in SQL Server. It was provided purely for legacy databases that had code that assumed the old CHAR behavior for dealing with padding, and its use has now been deprecated. Read more

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

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

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

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