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
Robyn Page and Phil Factor present practical T-SQL techniques for controlling access to sensitive information within the database, and preventing malicious SQL injection attacks.… Read more
Grant Fritchey steps into the workbench arena, with an example-fuelled examination of catching and gracefully handling errors in SQL 2000 and 2005, including worked examples of the new TRY..CATCH capabilities.… 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
Query notification allows your applications to take advantage of caching, safe in the knowledge that the cache will be refreshed whenever any critical data in the underlying database is updated. Find out how it all works...… Read more
Common Table Expressions (CTEs) are one of the most exciting features to be introduced with SQL Server 2005. Nigel Rivett explains what they are and how they can be used.… Read more
A seemingly never-ending battle in online database forums involves the question of whether or not database application development should involve the use of stored procedures.… Read more
One advantage of CLR assemblies is the ability to consume web services from within the database. This wouldn't be easy with T-SQL, and would also require a lot of work in an unmanaged extended stored procedure. With .NET, it's almost as simple as accessing a local DLL.… Read more
XML has been used to represent semi-structured (as well as unstructured) data such as documents and emails. If information in these models has to be queried, then XML is probably the simplest way to represent such information.… Read more
Your application may require an index based on a lengthy string, or even worse, a concatenation of two strings, or of a string and one or two integers. In a small table, you might not notice the impact. But suppose the table of interest contains 50 million rows? Then you will notice the impact both in terms of storage requirements and search performance.… Read more
Like a Phoenix, the dynamic SQL versus canned procedures and user functions argument has resurfaced on the SQL newsgroups. Many of the proponents of the dynamic argument are web or Access developers, or developers of some other front end. Arthur takes another look at the argument.… Read more
Stored procedures are not the be-all and end-all of managing changes in a database, but they can be very important tools in allowing changes to be made to a database whilst not breaking client applications...… Read more
There have been a number of discussions about whether to use SPs or not, often shedding more heat than light, Doug Reilly takes a look at the debate.… Read more
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