In this short article, Greg Larsen performance benchmarks alternative CLR-based and T-SQL stored procedure solutions for retrieving operating system file information. He also assesses other factors to be considered when choosing the correct implementation for your system, such as ease of development and maintenance.… Read more
SQL Server provides several "standard" techniques by which to read and write to files but, just occasionally, they aren't quite up to the task at hand - especially when dealing with large strings or relatively unstructured data. Phil Factor provides some T-SQL stored procedures, based on use of the FileSystem Object (FSO), that may just get you out of a tight corner...… Read more
Never a man to walk away from a challenge, Phil Factor set himself the task of automating the production of Word reports from SQL Server, armed only with OLE automation and a couple of stored procedures.… Read more
The need to produce Excel reports from SQL Server is very common. Here, Robyn Page and Phil Factor present practical techniques for creating and manipulating Excel spreadsheets from SQL Server, using linked servers and T-SQL. The pièce de résistance is a stored procedure that uses OLE Automation to allow you full control over the formatting of your Excel report, and the ability to include sums, ranges, pivot tables and so on.… Read more
