Joe Celko

The DRI Subject of References

A database must be able to maintain and enforce the business rules and relationships in data in order to maintain...

11 February 2015 13 min read

Dennes Torres

SQL Server Plan Cache Warnings: Detecting PlanAffectingConvert, MissingIndexes, and More

Detect query plan warnings in the SQL Server plan cache - PlanAffectingConvert (implicit conversion), ConvertIssue, NoStatsFound, MissingIndexes, and others -...

11 February 2015 10 min read

Dwain Camps

Bowled Over by SQL Window Functions

What better way to learn how to construct complex CHECK CONSTRAINTs, use the SQL 2012 window frame capability of the...

26 January 2015 27 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions About T-SQL Control-of-Flow Language You Were Too Shy to Ask

Surely, we all know how T-SQL Control-of-flow language works? In fact it is surprisingly easy to get caught out. What,...

26 January 2015 29 min read

Joe Celko

Discrete and Continuous data in SQL

Not all data is discrete; some data types represent a continuum. In SQL, we have to approximate them and live...

06 January 2015 17 min read

Robert Sheldon

SQL Server PIVOT: 12 Questions Answered (Multi-Column, Dynamic, UNPIVOT)

Twelve answered questions about the SQL Server PIVOT operator: how PIVOT rotates data, controlling grouping, column aliases, multi-column pivots, dynamic...

01 January 2015 30 min read

Dwain Camps

Archiving Hierarchical, Deleted Transactions Using XML

When you delete a business transaction from the database, there are times when you might want to keep a record...

30 December 2014 18 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions About T-SQL Transaction Isolation Levels You Were Too Shy to Ask

Every time you access a relational database to make a query, you have an important decision to make: What is...

04 December 2014 28 min read

Phil Factor

Bitwise Operations in T-SQL

How can you, in T-SQL, get a list of columns that have changed within a trigger? How can you see...

18 November 2014 22 min read

Dwain Camps

Using Stored Procedures to Provide an Application’s Business-Logic Layer

When faced with a complex business application that had to be delivered with minimum staffing, on-time and within budget, Dwain's...

14 November 2014 44 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions About Using TSQL to Import Excel Data You Were Too Shy to Ask

It is easy to import Excel data into database tables via TSQL, using OLEDB, either by the OPENROWSET function or...

05 November 2014 31 min read

William Sisson

Set-based Constraint Violation Reporting in SQL Server

When you're importing data into an RDBMS in bulk and an exception condition is raised because of a constraint violation,...

07 October 2014 18 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions about Primary and Foreign Keys You Were Too Shy to Ask

It is strange that one can ask simple questions about extended events or Hekaton at professional events and conferences without...

06 October 2014 38 min read

Dwain Camps

Filling In Missing Values Using the T-SQL Window Frame

Since SQL Server delivered the entire range of window functions, there has been far less justification for using the non-standard...

18 September 2014 18 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions about T-SQL Expressions You Were Too Shy to Ask

Nobody seems to ask questions about SQL Expressions in forums, even though expressions can cause all sorts of problems. Even...

13 August 2014 43 min read

Phil Factor

Quickly Investigating What’s in the Tables of SQL Server Databases

From SQL Server Management Studio it is difficult to look through the first few rows of a whole lot of...

12 August 2014 27 min read

Joe Celko

The SQL of Membership: Equivalence Classes & Cliques

It is awkward to do 'Graph databases' in SQL to explore the sort of relationships and memberships in social networks...

28 July 2014 11 min read

Robert Sheldon

Questions about SQL Server Data Types You were Too Shy to Ask

Although SQL Data Types seem to cause a lot of grief for database developers and can be tricky in their...

14 July 2014 41 min read

Dwain Camps

Check Digits in T-SQL: UPC, Luhn, and IBAN Algorithms with Code

Calculate and verify check digits in T-SQL for Universal Product Codes (UPC), credit card numbers (Luhn algorithm), and International Bank...

11 July 2014 24 min read

Robert Sheldon

SQL Server Tables – 11 Questions You Were Too Shy to Ask

There are some aspects of tables in SQL Server that a lot of people get wrong, purely because they seem...

18 June 2014 35 min read

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T-SQL Programming

The DRI Subject of References

SQL Server Plan Cache Warnings: Detecting PlanAffectingConvert, MissingIndexes, and More

Bowled Over by SQL Window Functions

Questions About T-SQL Control-of-Flow Language You Were Too Shy to Ask

Discrete and Continuous data in SQL

SQL Server PIVOT: 12 Questions Answered (Multi-Column, Dynamic, UNPIVOT)

Archiving Hierarchical, Deleted Transactions Using XML

Questions About T-SQL Transaction Isolation Levels You Were Too Shy to Ask

Bitwise Operations in T-SQL

Using Stored Procedures to Provide an Application’s Business-Logic Layer

Questions About Using TSQL to Import Excel Data You Were Too Shy to Ask

Set-based Constraint Violation Reporting in SQL Server

Questions about Primary and Foreign Keys You Were Too Shy to Ask

Filling In Missing Values Using the T-SQL Window Frame

Questions about T-SQL Expressions You Were Too Shy to Ask

Quickly Investigating What’s in the Tables of SQL Server Databases

The SQL of Membership: Equivalence Classes & Cliques

Questions about SQL Server Data Types You were Too Shy to Ask

Check Digits in T-SQL: UPC, Luhn, and IBAN Algorithms with Code

SQL Server Tables – 11 Questions You Were Too Shy to Ask