Using bigint with FORMATMESSAGE

SQL Server 2016 added the FORMATMESSAGE function.  According to Books On Line, FORMATMESSAGE constructs a message from an existing message in sys.messages or from a provided string. The functionality of FORMATMESSAGE resembles that of the RAISERROR statement. However, RAISERROR prints the message immediately, while FORMATMESSAGE returns the formatted message for further processing.

So let's take a look at this new function, run the following

SELECT FORMATMESSAGE('Signed int %i, %i', 50, -50) 
SELECT FORMATMESSAGE('Unsigned int %u, %u', 50, -50); 

Here is the output if you run that

--------------------------------------------
Signed int 50, -50
Unsigned int 50, 4294967246

Here is what the type specifications that you can use are

Type specification		Represents
d or i		Signed integer
o		Unsigned octal
s		String
u		Unsigned integer
x or X		Unsigned hexadecimal

We used i to denote a signed integer, we also used u to denote a unsigned integer


Let's look at another example, this time we are using a variable. The variable will be an integer and we  are using i as the type specification

DECLARE @Val int = 1
SELECT FORMATMESSAGE('The value you supplied %i is incorrect!', @Val);

Here is the output
---------------------------------------
The value you supplied 1 is incorrect!


That worked without a problem. Now let's use a variable of the bigint data type, we are using the same type specification as before

DECLARE @Val bigint = 1
SELECT FORMATMESSAGE('The value you supplied %i is incorrect!', @Val);

Here is the output
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Error: 50000, Severity: -1, State: 1. (Params:).
The error is printed in terse mode because there was error during formatting.
Tracing, ETW, notifications etc are skipped.


As you can see that did not work, so what can we do?

One thing we can do is converting the value to a varchar and then use s as the type specification

DECLARE @Val bigint = 1
SELECT FORMATMESSAGE('The value you supplied %s is incorrect!',
   CONVERT(VARCHAR(100),@Val));

You will again get this as output

---------------------------------------
The value you supplied 1 is incorrect!

So converting to varchar worked, but what if we want to use a bigint data type without converting to a varchar?

Another way is to use I64d as the type specification

DECLARE @Val bigint = 1
SELECT FORMATMESSAGE('The value you supplied %I64d is incorrect!', @Val);

You will get this

---------------------------------------
The value you supplied 1 is incorrect!

So there you have it, if you want to use bigint with FORMATMESSAGE use I64d as the type specification, or convert to varchar and use s as the type specification

Creating the Wide World Importers sample database v1.0

Before SQL Server 2005, we had the northwind and pubs sample database, these actually shipped with the product. If you did a SQL Server 2000 install, you would see these two database in addition to the system databases.

With SQL Server 2005 this changed, there were no more sample databases included. Instead new databases were made available for download, for a while now we have the AdventureWorks available. Today I wanted to see if there was a AdventureWorks 2016 database available. I couldn't find it. Instead I found the Wide World Importers sample database v1.0.

These sample databases live now on github


Here is the link  https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples


As a normal person you will probably navigate to the databases folder https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples/tree/master/samples/databases  and in there you will probably go to https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples/tree/master/samples/databases/wide-world-importers/wwi-database-scripts

Then you will see the following scripts

Now if your name is Denis or you like to waste time (or both), you think..cool I will download this repo and run these files.  That is not unreasonable to think......  but

To save you some time, here is the easiest way to put this database on your SQL Server instance

Instead of running those scripts, go to this page https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples/releases/tag/wide-world-importers-v1.0  scroll down to downloads, download the 121 MB file named WideWorldImporters-Full.bak

While that is downloading, create a folder on you C drive named SQL, in that folder create 2 folders one named Data and one named Log, it should look like in the image below

Now assuming the backup file is on the C drive, here is what the restore command should look like

USE [master]
RESTORE DATABASE [WideWorldImporters] 
FROM  DISK = N'C:\WideWorldImporters-Full.bak' WITH  FILE = 1,  
MOVE N'WWI_Primary' TO N'C:\SQL\DATA\WideWorldImporters.mdf',  
MOVE N'WWI_UserData' TO N'C:\SQL\DATA\WideWorldImporters_UserData.ndf',  
MOVE N'WWI_Log' TO N'C:\SQL\Log\WideWorldImporters.ldf',  
MOVE N'WWI_InMemory_Data_1' TO N'C:\SQL\DATA\WideWorldImporters_InMemory_Data_1',  
NOUNLOAD,  REPLACE,  STATS = 5

GO

On SQL Server vNext 1.1, the output looks like this from the command above

5 percent processed.
10 percent processed.
15 percent processed.
20 percent processed.
25 percent processed.
30 percent processed.
Processed 1464 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_Primary' on file 1.
Processed 53096 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_UserData' on file 1.
Processed 33 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_Log' on file 1.
Processed 3862 pages for database 'WideWorldImporters', file 'WWI_InMemory_Data_1' on file 1.
Converting database 'WideWorldImporters' from version 852 to the current version 860.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 852 to version 853.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 853 to version 854.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 854 to version 855.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 855 to version 856.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 856 to version 857.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 857 to version 858.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 858 to version 859.
Database 'WideWorldImporters' running the upgrade step from version 859 to version 860.
100 percent processed.
RESTORE DATABASE successfully processed 58455 pages in 6.105 seconds (74.803 MB/sec).

To make sure everything is cool after the restore is done, run the following

USE WideWorldImporters
GO

select [Website].[CalculateCustomerPrice](1,number,'20160101')
from master..spt_values
where type = 'p'


select [Website].[CalculateCustomerPrice](customerid,1,'20160101')
from Sales.customers

And now we can even check that the function is visible in the new sys.dm_exec_function_stats DMV

SELECT TOP 10 d.object_id, d.database_id, 
OBJECT_NAME(object_id, database_id) AS 'function name',   
    d.cached_time, d.last_execution_time, d.total_elapsed_time,  
    d.total_elapsed_time/d.execution_count AS [avg_elapsed_time],  
    d.last_elapsed_time, d.execution_count  
FROM sys.dm_exec_function_stats AS d  
ORDER BY [total_worker_time] DESC;  

And here is the output

As you can see, we can see this function was executed a bunch of time

So there you have it, this is how you create the DB.... I also now understand why Brent Ozar uses the Stackoverflow DB for his posts, at least it is easy to find  .., if you prefer that over this example, head over here: https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2015/10/how-to-download-the-stack-overflow-database-via-bittorrent/

T-SQL Tuesday #86: String or binary data would be truncated

This month's T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Brent Ozar, he proposed the following

Find the most interesting bug or enhancement request (and it can be your own), and write a blog post about it (including a link to the Connect item so that folks who agree with you can upvote the item)

This one was pretty easy for me, it is the following connect  item Please fix the "String or binary data would be truncated" message to give the column name

This error drives me crazy as well, it should be fairly easy to tell me if nothing else what damn column barfed on the data inserted, but no.. all you get is something like

Msg 8152, Level 16, State 6, Procedure <ProcName>, Line 61 String or binary data would be truncated.

This is like not having the black box after a plane crashed, you know the plane crashed, but you don't know why exactly.

Dealing with this issue on a semi-regular basis, I even have written my own T-SQL helper to quickly see where the issue is

declare @ImportTable varchar(100)
declare @DestinationTable varchar(100)
select @ImportTable = 'temp'
select @DestinationTable = 'TestTrunc'
 
declare @ImportTableCompare varchar(100)
declare @DestinationTableCompare varchar(100)
select @ImportTableCompare = 'MaxLengths'
select @DestinationTableCompare = 'TempTrunc'
 
 
declare @sql varchar(8000)
select @sql  = ''
select @sql = 'select  0 as _col0 ,'
select @sql +=   'max(len( ' + column_name+ ')) AS ' + column_name + ',' 
from information_schema.columns
where table_name = @ImportTable
and data_type in('varchar','char','nvarchar','nchar')
 
select @sql = left(@sql,len(@sql) -1)
select @sql +=' into ' + @ImportTableCompare + ' from ' + @ImportTable
 
--select @sql -debugging so simple, a caveman can do it
 
exec (@sql)
 
 
 
select @sql  = ''
select @sql = 'select 0 as _col0, '
select @sql +=   '' + convert(varchar(20),character_maximum_length)

+ ' AS ' + column_name + ',' 
from information_schema.columns
where table_name = @DestinationTable
and data_type in('varchar','char','nvarchar','nchar')
 
select @sql = left(@sql,len(@sql) -1)
select @sql +=' into ' + @DestinationTableCompare
 
--select @sql -debugging so simple, a caveman can do it
 
exec (@sql)
 
 
select @sql  = ''
select @sql = 'select  '
select @sql +=   '' + 'case when  t.' + column_name + ' > tt.' + column_name
+ ' then ''truncation'' else ''no truncation'' end as '+ column_name
+ ',' 
from information_schema.columns
where table_name = @ImportTableCompare
and column_name <> '_col0'
select @sql = left(@sql,len(@sql) -1)
select @sql +='  from ' + @ImportTableCompare + ' t
join ' + @DestinationTableCompare + ' tt on t._col0 = tt._col0 '
 
--select @sql -debugging so simple, a caveman can do it
 
exec (@sql)
 
 
exec ('drop table ' + @ImportTableCompare+ ',' + @DestinationTableCompare )

Something like this only helps you if you have the data readily available, what if it is from an application? In that case you need profiler or extended events to capture the statement

It is also crazy that this connect item is almost 9 years old, it was opened in April 2008

We do have someone from Microsoft commenting on this issue last August

Posted by David [MSFT] on 8/5/2016 at 1:39 PM

Latest update - the developer working on it understands the challenges involved in creating a full fix. It may be tricky to plumb the information about columns needed to generate a full error message down to the actual conversion function in such a way that won't impact insert or update performance. We may implement something cheap in the short term such as logging the type and length of the data being truncated. It's still too early to know when such a fix would reach a publicly visible release.

This connect item has 1328 upvotes as of today, it also has 5 downvotes (who are these people..probably working on the SQL Server team :-) )

So there you have it that is my contribution to T-SQL Tuesday # 86, keep track of Brent's blog here https://www.brentozar.com/blog/ there will be a recap posted on Tuesday, January 2017

BULK INSERT and csv format, new in vNext 1.1

In SQL Server vNext 1.1 we now have the ability to import a csv via the BULK INSERT command without having to specify the field or row terminator

 You still need to specify the format, if you only do something like the following

BULK INSERT AlexaSongs  
   FROM 'c:\Songs played with Alexa.csv'  

You will be greeted with these errors


Msg 4832, Level 16, State 1, Line 10
Bulk load: An unexpected end of file was encountered in the data file.
Msg 7399, Level 16, State 1, Line 10
The OLE DB provider "BULK" for linked server "(null)" reported an error. The provider did not give any information about the error.
Msg 7330, Level 16, State 2, Line 10
Cannot fetch a row from OLE DB provider "BULK" for linked server "(null)".

So let's take a look at how this all works

First create the following table

USE tempdb
GO

CREATE TABLE AlexaSongs(PlayDate varchar(100), 
   SongName varchar(200), 
   Artist varchar(200), 
   Album varchar(200))
GO

Now grab the csv file from here Songs played with Alexa.csv  Either download the whole project and grab the file, or open in raw mode and copy and paste it into a file and save as Songs played with Alexa.csv

Now that you have the file and table ready, let's first take a look at how this was done before vNext 1.1

Here is what it looked like

BULK INSERT AlexaSongs  
   FROM 'c:\Songs played with Alexa.csv'  
   WITH  
     (  
        FIELDTERMINATOR =',',  
        ROWTERMINATOR = '\n'
      ); 

As you can see, we specified a comma as the field terminator and a newline as the row terminator

You could also get it to work by just specifying the field terminator in this case

BULK INSERT AlexaSongs  
   FROM 'c:\Songs played with Alexa.csv'  
   WITH  
     (  
        FIELDTERMINATOR =','
      ); 

So what does the new syntax look like?

Here is the code that accomplished the same as above but by using the new WITH FORMAT = CSV option

BULK INSERT AlexaSongs
FROM 'c:\Songs played with Alexa.csv' 
WITH (FORMAT = 'CSV'); 

I guess you could say it is a little cleaner, but all this really is is syntactic sugar

For Azure, it looks like this, I grabbed this straight from this Books On Line Page here

First you need to create a data source

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE MyAzureInvoices
    WITH  (
        TYPE = BLOB_STORAGE,
        LOCATION = 'https://newinvoices.blob.core.windows.net', 
        CREDENTIAL = UploadInvoices  
    );

And then you use that data source

BULK INSERT Colors2
FROM 'week3/inv-2017-01-19.csv'
WITH (DATA_SOURCE = 'MyAzureInvoices',
      FORMAT = 'CSV'); 

For more examples including accessing data in a CSV file referencing a container in an Azure blob storage location go here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt805207.aspx

That's all for today

Running queries against the songs you played with Alexa

My son got an Amazon Echo for Christmas. We use the Echo mostly to play music. I have setup IFTTT (If This Then That) to save the name of any song we play in a Google Sheet.

Between December 26 and January 1st we played a little over 1000 songs. Most of the time I would just say something like "Alexa, play 80s music" or "Alexa, play 70s music" this is why you might see songs from the same period played in a row

It is no coincidence that a lot of George Michael songs were played, he died on Christmas day. The most played song was requested by my youngest son Nicholas, he loves Demons by Imagine Dragons

I decided to import the Alexa data into SQL Server and run some queries. If you want to follow along, you can get the file here from GitHub: Songs played by Alexa

I exported the Google Sheet to a tab delimited file, I saved this file on my C drive, I created a table and did a BULK INSERT to populate this table with the data from this file

USE tempdb
GO

CREATE TABLE AlexaSongs(PlayDate varchar(100), 
   SongName varchar(200), 
   Artist varchar(200), 
   Album varchar(200))
GO

BULK INSERT AlexaSongs  
   FROM 'c:\Songs played with Alexa.tsv'  
   WITH  
     (  
        FIELDTERMINATOR =' ',  
        ROWTERMINATOR = '\n'
      );  

 The date in the file is not a format that can be converted automatically, it looks like this  December 26, 2016 at 09:53AM

I decided to add a date column and then convert that value with T-SQL. I did this by using the REPLACE function and replacing ' at ' with  ' '

ALTER TABLE  AlexaSongs ADD DatePlayed datetime
GO


UPDATE AlexaSongs
SET DatePlayed =  CONVERT(datetime, replace(playdate,' at ',' '))
GO

Now that this is all done, we can run some queries
What is the artist which we played the most?

SELECT Artist, count(SongName) As SongCount 
FROM AlexaSongs
GROUP BY Artist
ORDER BY SongCount DESC

Artist	SongCount
George Michael	33
Nirvana	32
Imagine Dragons	22
Josh Groban	19
Eagles	17
Stone Temple Pilots	17
Mariah Carey	16
Meghan Trainor	15
Simon & Garfunkel	13
Pearl Jam	12

As you can see that is George Michael

How about if we want to know how many unique songs we played by artist?

SELECT Artist, count(DISTINCT SongName) As DistinctSongCount 
FROM AlexaSongs
GROUP BY Artist
ORDER BY DistinctSongCount DESC

Artist	DistinctSongCount
Nirvana	25
Stone Temple Pilots	16
George Michael	15
Eagles	12
Simon & Garfunkel	12
Josh Groban	12
Mariah Carey	11
Michael Bubl+¬	9
Snoop Dogg	9
Harry Connick Jr.	9

In this case Nirvana wins

How about the 10 most played songs? To answer that question and grab ties, we can use WITH TIES

SELECT TOP 10 WITH TIES Artist, SongName, COUNT(*) As SongCount 
FROM AlexaSongs
GROUP BY Artist,SongName
ORDER BY SongCount DESC

Here are the results

Artist	SongName	SongCount
Imagine Dragons	Radioactive	12
Jason Mraz	I'm Yours	9
Pearl Jam	Yellow Ledbetter	6
Josh Groban	When You Say You Love Me	5
Oasis	Wonderwall (Remastered)	4
House Of Pain	Jump Around [Explicit]	4
Meghan Trainor	Lips Are Movin	4
Imagine Dragons	Round And Round	4
Nirvana	Smells Like Teen Spirit	4
Sir Mix-A-Lot	Baby Got Back [Explicit]	4
George Michael	Careless Whisper	4
George Michael	Faith (Remastered)	4
George Michael	Father Figure	4
George Michael	Freedom! '90	4

So what other interesting queries can you come up with? How about how many Christmas related songs were there? Would the query look something like this?

SELECT TOP 10 WITH TIES Artist, SongName, COUNT(*) As SongCount 
FROM AlexaSongs
WHERE SongName LIKE '%christmas%'
OR SongName LIKE '%xmas%'
OR SongName LIKE '%santa%'
GROUP BY Artist,SongName
ORDER BY SongCount DESC

Maybe you would want to know how many songs you played per day?

SELECT CONVERT(date, DatePlayed) as TheDate, count(*)
FROM AlexaSongs
GROUP BY CONVERT(date, DatePlayed)
ORDER BY TheDate

Or maybe you want to know how many songs with the same title were sung by more than 1 artist?
Is this what the query would look like?

SELECT SongName, count(DISTINCT Artist) As SongCount 
FROM AlexaSongs
GROUP BY SongName
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1
ORDER BY SongCount DESC

If you want the song as well as the artist, you can use a windowing function with DENSE_RANK

;WITH cte AS(
SELECT   Artist, SongName, 
  DENSE_RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY   SongName
    ORDER BY Artist ) AS SongCount
FROM AlexaSongs )  

SELECT * FROM cte WHERE SongCount > 1

That is all for this post, I will keep collecting this data till next Christmas and hopefully will be able to run some more interesting queries