Quest Toad for SQL Server 2.0 Released

Quest Software, Inc. announced the newest version of its award-winning Toad™ database management product family. Toad for SQL Server 2.0 includes new features such as one-of-a-kind integrated debugging, SQL optimization, and integrated comparison and synchronization capabilities for SQL Server 2005. These new features further improve the productivity of SQL Server developers and database administrators (DBAs).


New features in version 2.0 of Toad for SQL Server include:

• Database Back-Up Indicator – Demonstrates when it is necessary to back up a system, and integrates seamlessly with LiteSpeed for SQL Server


• SQL Optimization - Automates the process of identifying problematic SQL then re-writing and benchmarking it for optimal SQL Server performance.


• Compare and Sync – Provides advanced integrated comparison and synchronization of schema, data and server settings of two SQL Server environments.


• Debugging – Offers integrated debugging capabilities for SQL Server 2005.

“With Toad for SQL Server 2.0, Quest offers customers a single interface to develop, administer and optimize their SQL Server environments,” said Douglas Chrystall, chief architect, Quest Software. “In addition to this release, Quest is making its Comparison Suite of tools free of charge. This further demonstrates Quest’s commitment to the SQL Server market – not only by expanding the breadth and depth our SQL Server portfolio with the enhancements to Toad, but also making essential tools, such as the Comparison Suite, freely available to the market.”

Pricing and Availability
A freeware version of 2.0 of Quest Toad for SQL Server is available now at http://www.toadsoft.com/toadsqlserver/toad_sqlserver.htm

A full production version is also available now with North American pricing beginning at $470 per seat (USD). For more information and to download free evaluation copies please visit: http://www.quest.com/toad_for_sql_server/

DDL Trigger Events Revisited

Many many moons ago I wrote about DDL Trigger Events
I promised that I would find out all the events that you can combine for example DDL_VIEW_EVENTS instead of CREATE_VIEW
,ALTER_VIEW and DROP_VIEW
So I finally did it, I created a bunch of triggers and then checked with a query that joined sys.triggers and sys.trigger_events

I started by creating a trigger and I used DDL_VIEW_EVENTS

CREATE TRIGGER ddlTestEvents
ON DATABASE
FOR DDL_VIEW_EVENTS
AS
PRINT 'You must disable Trigger "ddlTestEvents" to drop, create or alter Views!'
ROLLBACK;
GO

After that I would check the sys.triggers and sys.trigger_events views to see what was inserted

SELECT name,te.type,te.type_desc
FROM sys.triggers t
JOIN sys.trigger_events te on t.object_id = te.object_id
WHERE t.parent_class=0
AND name IN('ddlTestEvents')
ORDER BY te.type,te.type_desc

In this case 3 rows were inserted

DDL_VIEW_EVENTS
----------------------------------
41 CREATE_VIEW
42 ALTER_VIEW
43 DROP_VIEW

Then I altered the trigger as follows

CREATE TRIGGER ddlTestEvents
ON DATABASE
FOR DDL_USER_EVENTS
AS
PRINT 'You must disable Trigger "ddlTestEvents" to drop, create or alter Users!'
ROLLBACK;
GO

I checked again with the same query

SELECT name,te.type,te.type_desc
FROM sys.triggers t
JOIN sys.trigger_events te on t.object_id = te.object_id
WHERE t.parent_class=0
AND name IN('ddlTestEvents')
ORDER BY te.type,te.type_desc
in this case 3 rows were also inserted


DDL_USER_EVENTS
----------------------------------
131 CREATE_USER
132 ALTER_USER
133 DROP_USER

I kept repeating this until I had all the events and below is the result
The number that you see before the event is the type from the sys.trigger_events view

DDL_XML_SCHEMA_COLLECTION_EVENTS
----------------------------------
177 CREATE_XML_SCHEMA_COLLECTION
178 ALTER_XML_SCHEMA_COLLECTION
179 DROP_XML_SCHEMA_COLLECTION


DDL_VIEW_EVENTS
----------------------------------
41 CREATE_VIEW
42 ALTER_VIEW
43 DROP_VIEW


DDL_TRIGGER_EVENTS
----------------------------------
71 CREATE_TRIGGER
72 ALTER_TRIGGER
73 DROP_TRIGGER


DDL_USER_EVENTS
----------------------------------
131 CREATE_USER
132 ALTER_USER
133 DROP_USER


DDL_TYPE_EVENTS
----------------------------------
91 CREATE_TYPE
93 DROP_TYPE


DDL_TABLE_EVENTS
----------------------------------
21 CREATE_TABLE
22 ALTER_TABLE
23 DROP_TABLE


DDL_SYNONYM_EVENTS
----------------------------------
34 CREATE_SYNONYM
36 DROP_SYNONYM


DDL_STATISTICS_EVENTS
-----------------------------------
27 CREATE_STATISTICS
28 UPDATE_STATISTICS
29 DROP_STATISTICS


DDL_SERVICE_EVENTS
------------------------------------
161 CREATE_SERVICE
162 ALTER_SERVICE
163 DROP_SERVICE


DDL_SCHEMA_EVENTS
------------------------------------
141 CREATE_SCHEMA
142 ALTER_SCHEMA
143 DROP_SCHEMA


DDL_ROUTE_EVENTS
------------------------------------
164 CREATE_ROUTE
165 ALTER_ROUTE
166 DROP_ROUTE


DDL_ROLE_EVENTS
----------------------------------
134 CREATE_ROLE
135 ALTER_ROLE
136 DROP_ROLE


DDL_REMOTE_SERVICE_BINDING_EVENTS
-----------------------------------
174 CREATE_REMOTE_SERVICE_BINDING
175 ALTER_REMOTE_SERVICE_BINDING
176 DROP_REMOTE_SERVICE_BINDING


DDL_QUEUE_EVENTS
---------------------------------
157 CREATE_QUEUE
158 ALTER_QUEUE
159 DROP_QUEUE


DDL_PROCEDURE_EVENTS
----------------------------------
51 CREATE_PROCEDURE
52 ALTER_PROCEDURE
53 DROP_PROCEDURE


DDL_PARTITION_SCHEME_EVENTS
------------------------------------
194 CREATE_PARTITION_SCHEME
195 ALTER_PARTITION_SCHEME
196 DROP_PARTITION_SCHEME


DDL_PARTITION_FUNCTION_EVENTS
------------------------------
191 CREATE_PARTITION_FUNCTION
192 ALTER_PARTITION_FUNCTION
193 DROP_PARTITION_FUNCTION


DDL_EVENT_NOTIFICATION_EVENTS
----------------------------------
74 CREATE_EVENT_NOTIFICATION
76 DROP_EVENT_NOTIFICATION


DDL_ASSEMBLY_EVENTS
-----------------------------------
101 CREATE_ASSEMBLY
102 ALTER_ASSEMBLY
103 DROP_ASSEMBLY


DDL_CONTRACT_EVENTS
-----------------------------------
154 CREATE_CONTRACT
156 DROP_CONTRACT


DDL_FUNCTION_EVENTS
---------------------------------
61 CREATE_FUNCTION
62 ALTER_FUNCTION
63 DROP_FUNCTION


DDL_INDEX_EVENTS
---------------------------------
24 CREATE_INDEX
25 ALTER_INDEX
26 DROP_INDEX
206 CREATE_XML_INDEX


DDL_MESSAGE_TYPE_EVENTS
------------------------------------
151 CREATE_MESSAGE_TYPE
152 ALTER_MESSAGE_TYPE
153 DROP_MESSAGE_TYPE

Architecting Microsoft.com – SQL Server Podcast And Video

Channel 9 has an interesting video and podcast about the microsoft.com architecture with SQL Server
From the site: "At the heart of most web sites once you dig down below the routers, below the web servers, below the ASP.NET code you find a critical piece. The heart of the matter if you will is the database and if that heart stops... well let’s just say your website will assume room temperature quickly. The question is; what do the guys at Microsoft.com do to insure that the heart of the system is thumpin’ and pumpin’ day in and day out 24x7 while still needing to do updates, patches, server maintenance etc.? Well never fear because we have the answer for you so listen up and learn something!"

The podcast is available in WMA and MP3 formats and runs for 27 minutes and 55 seconds
The video length is 26 minutes and 9 seconds

you can get the podcast and the video here (http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=226519)

Query Multiple Databases

"Query Multiple Databases"
This search term has been used 13 times in the last week on this blog. So here is a little blog post about it
It's really not complicated to query multiple databases. You have to have permissions on both databases
The syntax looks like this:
SELECT *
FROM Database1.ObjectOwner.TableName
JOIN Database2.ObjectOwner.TableName ON.....

So here is a little script so that you can test it out

USE master
GO

--Create the first Database
CREATE DATABASE DBtest1
GO

--Create the second Database
CREATE DATABASE DBtest2
GO



USE DBtest1
GO

--Create Table1 on DBtest1
CREATE TABLE Table1(id INT, DescriptionValue VARCHAR(49))
INSERT Table1 VALUES (1,'DBtest1')
GO


USE DBtest2
GO

--Create Table2 on DBtest2
CREATE TABLE Table2(id INT, DescriptionValue VARCHAR(49))
INSERT Table2 VALUES (1,'DBtest2')
GO



USE master
GO

--Do the join between DBtest1 and DBtest2
SELECT *
FROM DBtest1.dbo.Table1 t1
JOIN DBtest2.dbo.Table2 t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
GO


--Another way
SELECT *
FROM DBtest1..Table1 t1
JOIN DBtest2..Table2 t2 ON t1.id = t2.id
GO



--Drop these databases
DROP DATABASE DBtest1,DBtest2

Analysis Services Stored Procedure Project Released On CodePlex

The Analysis Services Stored Procedure project is a set of sample stored procedures for Analysis Services 2005. These samples have been written in C# and sample MDX queries are included that demonstrate the use of the procedures against the Adventure Works DW sample database. It was developed by a group of community volunteers with 2 main aims in mind:

To provide a set of useful extensions to Analysis Services 2005.
To provide a variety of example source code for people looking to write their own stored procedures.

Visit the CodePlex site to download the source code

Use The Sieve of Eratosthenes To Find All PrimeNumbers Below 1 Million

In mathematics, the Sieve of Eratosthenes is a simple, ancient algorithm for finding all prime numbers up to a specified integer. It was created by Eratosthenes, an ancient Greek mathematician. Wheel factorization is often applied on the list of integers to be checked for primality, before Sieve of Eratosthenes is used, to increase the speed.


Algorithm
Write a list of numbers from 2 to the largest number you want to test for primality. Call this List A. (This is the list of squares on the left-hand-side of the picture.)
Write the number 2, the first prime number, in another list for primes found. Call this List B. (This is the list on the right-hand-side of the picture.)
Strike off 2 and all multiples of 2 from List A.
The first remaining number in the list is a prime number. Write this number into List B.
Strike off this number and all multiples of this number from List A. The crossing-off of multiples can be started at the square of the number, as lower multiples have already been crossed out in previous steps.
Repeat steps 4 through 6 until no more numbers are left in List A.

Read more on Wikipedia


So here is the SQL Version, it runs in 7 seconds on my machine when I run it a
second time, first run is 16 seconds

SET NOCOUNT ON


DECLARE @i INT

-- Create a 10-digit table
DECLARE @D TABLE (N INT)
INSERT INTO @D (N) 
SELECT 0 UNION ALL 
SELECT 1 UNION ALL 
SELECT 2 UNION ALL 
SELECT 3 UNION ALL 
SELECT 4

INSERT INTO @D (N) 
SELECT N+5 FROM @D

-- build a small sieve table between 2 and 1000
DECLARE @T TABLE (N INT)
INSERT INTO @T( N )
SELECT 1+A.N+10*(B.N+10*C.N)
FROM @D A, @D B, @D C

DELETE FROM @T WHERE N = 1

SET @I = 2
WHILE @I <= SQRT(1000)
BEGIN
    DELETE FROM @T WHERE N % @I = 0 AND N > @I
    SET @I = @I + 1
END

-- Create large table between 1001 and 1000000
SELECT A+10*(B+10*(C+10*(D+10*(E+ 10*F)))) AS N
INTO #P
FROM
(    SELECT A.N AS A, B.N AS B, C.N AS C, D.N AS D, E.N AS E, F.N AS F
    FROM @D A, @D B, @D C, @D D, @D E, @D F
    WHERE A.N in (1, 3, 7, 9)  -- Not divisible by 2 or 5
) blah
WHERE (A+B+C+D+E+F) % 3 <> 0 -- Or 3
    AND (A+3*B+2*C-D-3*E-2*F) % 7 <> 0 -- Or 7
    AND (B-A+D-C+F-E) % 11 <> 0 -- Or 11
    AND D|E|F <> 0 -- Don't include the first 1000 numbers, 
--we already have these in the small sieve table
UNION ALL SELECT 1000000

-- sieve the big table with smaller one
SELECT @I = 2 
WHILE @I IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
    DELETE FROM #P WHERE N% @I = 0
    SELECT @I = MIN(N) FROM @T WHERE N > @I
END

-- add primes up to 1000
INSERT INTO #P SELECT N FROM @T

-- Here are the results
--78498 rows
SELECT  * FROM #P ORDER BY 1

drop table #P
go

Try Quest LiteSpeed And Win An iPod Nano (Hopefully)

Quest has a nice little give away. They are giving away 40 2GB Apple Nano iPods to people who are willing to try LiteSpeed for SQL Server.
I am already using LiteSpeed on the production machines but the cool thing is that Quest has a free version that you can use with the developer editions of SQL Server at no cost at all
So check it out here

SQL Server Book Sales Up 98% Compared To Last Year

Tim O’Reilly has posted his latest State of the Computer Book Market article. Here are 2 excerpts: “Looking at the Database rollup, we again see the strength of SQL Server, the decline of Oracle book sales, and that while MySQL is still a much larger category than Postgres, Postgres is showing some curious strength. This is one of the things that treemap visualizations are good for. Small, bright green categories stand out, and you can start paying closer attention. (Ruby also showed bright green while it was still a tiny category before its remarkable surge over the past year.) We also see the continuing popularity of personal databases like Access and Filemaker.
“


“A few high-level observations:
• C# book sales continues to gain on Java, with a 49% unit sales increase compared to Java's 10% decrease.
• Ruby continues its momentum, and is the fastest-growing programming language in terms of book sales.
• Microsoft's new release of SQL Server has continued to drive significant book sales, with that market up 86%. ASP.Net is also on a roll, with book sales up 61%.
“
Read the whole article here

Store The Output Of A Stored Procedure In A Table Without Creating A Table

I saw this technique in the Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying T-SQL and today I saw it also here The OPENROWSET Trick: Accessing Stored Procedure Output In A SELECT Statement @ Ward Pond's SQL Server blog

I decided to expand this a little
Sometimes I need to quickly find out who is blocking what (or what is blocking who for that matter) so I run sp_who2 then look at the BlkBy column and run a DBCC INPUTBUFFER or fn_get_sql to get the sql statement

When you have a lot of connections it's a pain in the neck to look for the BlkBy where it's not . since the result is ordered by SPID
You can always do
CREATE TABLE
INSERT TABLE
EXEC Proc

But who wants to create tables all the time (not me, at least not for this stuff)
SPID is twice in the resultset of sp_who2 (who know why?) so that complicates things a little
So let's start with sp_who


SELECT * INTO #TempSpWho
FROM OPENROWSET ('SQLOLEDB','Server=(local);TRUSTED_CONNECTION=YES;','set fmtonly off exec master.dbo.sp_who')

--return only the connections to master
SELECT * FROM #TempSpWho
WHERE dbname ='master'



--Let's try sp_who2
SELECT * INTO #TempSpWho2
FROM OPENROWSET ('SQLOLEDB','Server=(local);TRUSTED_CONNECTION=YES;','set fmtonly off exec master.dbo.sp_who2')

--Oops
Server: Msg 2705, Level 16, State 3, Line 1
Column names in each table must be unique. Column name 'SPID' in table '#TempSpWho2' is specified more than once.

--No problem list the columns
SELECT SPID, Status, Login, HostName, BlkBy,DBName, Command, CPUTime, DiskIO, LastBatch, ProgramName
INTO #TempSpWho2
FROM OPENROWSET ('SQLOLEDB','Server=(local);TRUSTED_CONNECTION=YES;','set fmtonly off exec master.dbo.sp_who2')

--Get the connections to master only
SELECT * FROM #TempSpWho2
WHERE dbname ='master'

--Get the blocking SPID's
SELECT * FROM #TempSpWho2
WHERE BlkBy NOT LIKE '% .'

--Get user connections only (everything with a SPID below 51 is reserved for sql server processes)
SELECT * FROM #TempSpWho2
WHERE SPID >= 50

A couple of notes
The OPENROWSET call opens a separate connection to SQL Server, so there is some overhead associated with this approach
This technique is not supported inside a declared transaction
Blocking can occure with a poorly architected stored procedure

Top SQL Server Google Searches For July 2006

These are the top SQL Searches on this site for the month of July. I have left out searches that have nothing to do with SQL Server or programming. As you can see it has been a slow(er) month. And Google reports only searches that have been searched for more than once. For example if you have these 4 searches
insert triggers
insert trigger
insert triggers
insert trigger!

Then only insert triggers will show up since the other two were used only one time


Here are the results...

increase maximum row size in mssql
crystal report division by zero code
insert triggers
select sum where
select from
delete a null record


Let's talk about the last search (delete a null record ) a little bit
The code below will show you how exactly you delete a row with a NULL value. You can not use =NULL but you have to use IS NULL

CREATE TABLE #TestDeleteNull (id INT identity, SomeDate DATETIME)
INSERT #TestDeleteNull VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT #TestDeleteNull VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT #TestDeleteNull VALUES(NULL)


--Check what's in the table
SELECT * FROM #TestDeleteNull

--This won't work
DELETE #TestDeleteNull
WHERE SomeDate = NULL
--(0 row(s) affected)

--This is the way
DELETE #TestDeleteNull
WHERE SomeDate IS NULL
--(1 row(s) affected)

--Check again
SELECT * FROM #TestDeleteNull

6 Different Ways To Get The Current Identity Value From A Table

This article will show you how to get the current identity value from a table and also some things that might act a little different than you would expect

Let's first create our two simple tables
CREATE TABLE TestOne (id INT identity,SomeDate DATETIME)
CREATE TABLE TestTwo (id INT identity,TestOneID INT,SomeDate DATETIME)

--Let's insert 4 rows into the table
INSERT TestOne VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT TestOne VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT TestOne VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT TestOne VALUES(GETDATE())



Here are 6 ways to check for the current value

--1 @@IDENTITY
SELECT @@IDENTITY
--this returns 4


--2 DBCC CHECKIDENT
DBCC CHECKIDENT (TestOne, NORESEED)
after running DBCC CHECKIDENT the message returned is
Checking identity information: current identity value '4', current column value '4'.
DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.


--3 MAX function
SELECT MAX(id)
FROM TestOne
you can also check with the MAX function but this is not recommended becuase you might get some other identity value that is not yours but from a different user

--4 TOP 1 and ORDER BY DESC
SELECT TOP 1 id
FROM TestOne
ORDER BY id DESC
--The same applies here as for the max function, this is not recommended


--5 IDENT_CURRENT
SELECT IDENT_CURRENT('TestOne')
--IDENT_CURRENT is another way to check


--6 SCOPE_IDENTITY
SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY()
--This one is very similar to @@IDENTITY with one BIG difference (shown later)



--Let's add a trigger to the TestOne table
CREATE TRIGGER trTestOne ON [dbo].[TestOne]
FOR INSERT
AS
DECLARE @CreditUserID INT

SELECT @CreditUserID = (SELECT ID FROM Inserted)

INSERT TestTwo VALUES(@CreditUserID,GETDATE())
GO

--Let's insert another row into the TestOne table
INSERT TestOne VALUES(GETDATE())

SELECT @@IDENTITY --1
SELECT @@IDENTITY,SCOPE_IDENTITY(),IDENT_CURRENT('TestOne') --1,5,5

Now why doesn't @@IDENTITY return 5 but 1?
This is because @@IDENTITY doesn't care about scope and returns the last identity value from all the statements, which in this case is from the code within the trigger trTestOne




So the bottom line is this: Always use SCOPE_IDENTITY() unless you DO need the last identity value regradless of scope (for example you need to know the identity from the table insert inside the trigger)

--Clean up this mess
DROP TABLE TestOne,TestTwo

@@ROWCOUNT And Trigger Woes

Here I go again linking to other people's posts instead of writing my own ;-(
Louis Davidson has a nice little entry on his SQL Doctor blog about Triggers and the @@ROWCOUNT function
You can check it out here

Integer Math In SQL Server

If you divide with 2 integers in SQL Server the result will be also an integer( 3/2 =1, 5/2 =2)
If you need the fractions then you need to convert/cast to decimal/numeric or multiply one of the integers by 1.0

Let's test this out

DECLARE @Value1 INT
DECLARE @Value2 INT

SELECT @Value1 =3,@Value2 =2

--here is where we get 1 instead of 1.5
SELECT @Value1/@Value2

--after using convert the result is correct
SELECT @Value1/CONVERT(DECIMAL(3,2),@Value2)

--after using cast the result is correct
SELECT @Value1/CAST(@Value2 AS DECIMAL(3,2))

--after multiplying with 1.0 the result is correct
SELECT @Value1/(@Value2*1.0)


--this won't work since the multiplication is done after we have the result
SELECT @Value1/@Value2*1.0

Return All the Rows From A Table Where At Least One Of The Columns IS NULL

Sometimes you inherit a table/database and you need to check if any of the rows in the table have columns with null values
I will show you a great timesaver to accomplish this task
First let's create the table

CREATE TABLE TestNulls (c1 INT,c2 INT, c3 INT,c4 INT,c5 INT, c6 INT)
INSERT TestNulls VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNulls VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNulls VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNulls VALUES (1,NULL,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNulls VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNulls VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNulls VALUES (1,1,1,NULL,1,1)

One way to check is to write an OR for every column
SELECT *
FROM TestNulls
WHERE C1 IS NULL
OR C2 IS NULL
OR C3 IS NULL
OR C4 IS NULL
OR C5 IS NULL
OR C6 IS NULL

A better (faster) way is to do it like this

SELECT *
FROM TestNulls
WHERE C1+C2+C3+C4+C5+C6 IS NULL

What if you have 50 columns, who wants to write them all out? Well not me.
No problem in Query Analyzer hit F8, this will bring up the Object Browser
In SQL Server Managment Studio use the Object Explorer
Navigate to the table click on the + and drag the whole column folder into the query window
You will see something like this c1, c2, c3, c4, c5, c6
Copy that open up notepad and paste it into notepad. Hit CTRL + H and in the Find box type a , and in the Replace box type a +, hit OK. After that do a CTRL + A and CTRL + C
Paste it back into Query Analyzer/SQL Server Managment Studio and you are done with that part

This will work everytime if all the columns are integers, what if you have varchars?
Let's test that out


CREATE TABLE TestNullsChar (c1 CHAR(1),c2 CHAR(1), c3 CHAR(1),c4 CHAR(1),c5 CHAR(1), c6 CHAR(1))
INSERT TestNullsChar VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNullsChar VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNullsChar VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNullsChar VALUES (1,NULL,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNullsChar VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNullsChar VALUES (1,1,1,1,1,1)
INSERT TestNullsChar VALUES (1,1,1,NULL,1,1)


No problem here (depending on your CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL setting)

SELECT *,C1+C2+C3+C4+C5+C6
FROM TestNullsChar
WHERE C1+C2+C3+C4+C5+C6 IS NULL

Let's set our CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL setting to off
SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL OFF

Run the query again

SELECT *,C1+C2+C3+C4+C5+C6
FROM TestNullsChar
WHERE C1+C2+C3+C4+C5+C6 IS NULL


As you can see nothing was returned so make sure that CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL is set to on before executing such a query because NULL + any other value will return NULL if CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL is set to on

SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL ON

Undocumented Options For UPDATE STATISTICS

Since I am still sleep deprived and can't think straight I have decided to post a link to a good article on the Tips, Tricks, and Advice from the SQL Server Query Optimization Team blog about some undocumented options that can be used with UPDATE STATISTICS

The link to that post is here: UPDATE STATISTICS Undocumented Options

A Father Again

I am a father again; my wife gave birth to 2 beautiful babies on Monday night. The boy is named Nicholas and the girl is name Catherine (yes just like Catherine the Great and Czar Nicholas II) I was working Monday and knew we were launching some new products this Wednesday. So I did all the work on staging on Monday and said to myself I will put it on the production box on Tuesday just in case my wife goes into labor. Well my wife didn’t feel that good on Monday and went in for a checkup and they decided to deliver the babies the same day. My son was with my wife so the person who I report to drove me to the hospital (I did not bring my keys to work) after that he drove me home so I could get some stuff and then he drove me back again (who else has a boss like that? ) A friend of ours came to the hospital to watch our son because my wife insisted that I had to be in the delivery room. My wife’s sisters were on vacation in Ocean City, they decided to visit that night and drove to the hospital. They arrived during the time that the babies were born. After the babies were born the sister took our son to our home and stayed there and I slept on the most comfortable (yeah right) hospital pull out chair. The sisters left on Tuesday and I went back home at 9PM. After putting my son to bed I logged in to my computer at work and worked for about an hour to move all the code over and to test that I didn’t mess up anything. My wife is still in the hospital but she will be coming home with the babies Friday morning. That’s it for now, next post will be SQL related again, probably sometime next week.

Below are some pictures, click on the pictures to get a bigger picture

Susan, Christian, Catherine and Nicholas


Nicholas


Catherine

Flat File Bulk Import Speed Comparison In SQL Server 2005

Mladen has compared the following 4 methods for importing a flat file in SQl Server 2005

1. BCP
2. Bulk Insert
3. OpenRowset with BULK option
4. SQL Server Integration Services - SSIS

Which do you think is the fastest? If you answered 1 or 2 you might be in for a surprise. Visit Mladen's blog to find out the answer

Three Ways To Get The Time Portion Of A Datetime Value

This popped up in a newsgroup today so I decided to do a little post about it. How do you get the time information only from a datetime value
These are at least 3 ways to do this

1) use the 3 different datepart functions and concatenate them
2) convert and grab the 8 right most characters
3) convert to varchar and use style 108

So here we go

--1 use the 3 different datepart functions and concatenate them
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(2),DATEPART(HH,GETDATE())) + ':' +
CONVERT(VARCHAR(2),DATEPART(MI,GETDATE())) + ':' +
CONVERT(VARCHAR(2),DATEPART(S,GETDATE()))

--2 convert and grab the 8 right most characters
SELECT RIGHT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(22),GETDATE(),120),8)


--3 convert to varchar and use style 108
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(12),GETDATE(),108)

Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals Interview On Channel 9

Channel 9 has a cool webcast with several people talking about Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (Data Dude)

From the site: "Cameron Skinner, Gert Drapers, Robert Merriman, Thomas Murphy, and Matt Nunn sat down me with to discuss a new edition to the Visual Studio Team product family: Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals. We talked about why this product was created and Cameron (the product unit manager) gave a walk through of the current CTP release. Targeted for delivery at the end of the year, you can grab the CTP bits and learn more at the team’s website: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/dbpro/"

You can download the webcast here (http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=212797) or click on the picture

Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals CTP 4 Available

Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (Data Dude) CTP 4 is available for download

Brief Description
Community Technology Preview (CTP) 4
Tools for building SQL databases in a managed project environment with support for versioning, deployment, unit testing, refactoring, and off-line SQL development.

Overview
Tools for building SQL databases in a managed project environment with support for versioning, deployment, unit testing, refactoring, and off-line SQL development. This release is focused on completing a full functionality scenario for SQL 2000 and includes an updated project system with reverse engineering, a new SQL Query Editor, Schema and Data Compare, Data Generation, Unit Testing, and Rename Refactoring. This release does not have functionality changes from CTP3, only stability work and the new project UI.

Get it here

SqlBlog

Peter DeBetta and Adam Machanic have created SqlBlog.com. It has a very nice list of SQL Server blogs and if you click on roller you will see a about 40 of them displayed (mine is missing ;-( )
So what are you waiting for? Sign up here, I already did

Non Updating Update Performance Improvement In SQL Server 2005

When you do a non updating update like the one below

UPDATE t
SET i = 1
WHERE i=1



In SQL 2000, the lack of the optimization leads to updating the nonclustered index even if the value is not changing.

In the SQL 2005 plan, it is possible to appreciate
- a “Compute Scalar” operator that compares the current value and new value of the column being modified
- a new filter operator that on a row by row basis will determine whether the nonclustered index is being affected or not
- the fact that nonclustered index maintenance is now bypassed

Read the whole article (including statistics profile output screenshot) at the Tips, Tricks, and Advice from the SQL Server Query Optimization Team blog

Setting Identity Value Back To 1 After Deleting All Rows From A Table

Sometimes you want the identity value to start from 1 again after you delete all the rows from a table
There are 2 ways to accomplish that
1 Use the TRUNCATE TABLE command instead of DELETE
2 If you do use DELETE then run DBCC CHECKIDENT and reseed the table

Here is some code to explain what I mean

CREATE TABLE TestValues (Id INT identity,DateVale DATETIME)
INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())
INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())

SELECT *
FROM TestValues

-- This is the output
-- 1 2006-07-10 12:31:17.050
-- 2 2006-07-10 12:31:17.050
-- 3 2006-07-10 12:31:17.050
-- 4 2006-07-10 12:31:17.050
-- 5 2006-07-10 12:31:17.050


DELETE TestValues

INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())

SELECT *
FROM TestValues

-- Output
-- 6 2006-07-10 12:31:29.143


TRUNCATE TABLE TestValues

INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())

SELECT *
FROM TestValues

-- Output
-- 1 2006-07-10 12:31:38.317


INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())

DELETE TestValues

DBCC CHECKIDENT(TestValues,RESEED,0)
-- Message
-- Checking identity information: current identity value '2', current column value '0'.
-- DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.

INSERT INTO TestValues VALUES(GETDATE())

SELECT *
FROM TestValues

-- Output
-- 1 2006-07-10 12:31:52.503

DROP TABLE TestValues

Building SQL Server Integration Services Packages

Learn how easy it is to build and debug your first SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) Package. Donald Farmer introduces the development environment and the basic concepts of packages and walks through the creation and testing of a simple data flow. See why users describe SSIS as the most productive environment for data integration.

Watch the video at MSDN TV

Get the files here

Designing Effective Aggregations In Analysis Services 2005

If you're into Analysis Services, Integration Services, Reporting Services and BI in general - you'll want to check out Elizabeth Vitt's new blog I found the link to her blog on Kimberly Tripps blog

In her first entry, Elizabeth Vitt highlights the design components that determine which attributes are considered for aggregation:


Aggregation Definition
Attribute Relationships
Aggregation Candidates
Aggregation Usage

Read the article here: Influencing Aggregation Candidates

Free Quest LiteSpeed For SQL Server Developer Edition

Here is an Independence Day gift for you. You can get the fast backup and recovery solution LiteSpeed for free (to be used with the developer edition only)

From the Quest site:

"The fast backup and recovery solution for Microsoft SQL Server Developer Edition is here - LiteSpeed™ for SQL Server Developer Edition. LiteSpeed's low-impact, high-performance compression technology allows you to dramatically reduce storage costs and backup/recovery windows.




With LiteSpeed, you'll achieve:

Fast backup and recovery. LiteSpeed's technology achieves 50 percent faster backup and recovery times, allowing you to cut your restore time in half.
Reduced file sizes and storage costs. LiteSpeed's compression technology compresses data up to 95 percent, saving disk space.
Optimized backup and recovery. You'll maintain complete control, while backup and recovery performance is improved right out of the box.



Reduce the time and costs associated with backup and recovery projects today with this full-version download. LiteSpeed for SQL Server Developer Edition - a $45 value - is completely FREE to SQL Server Central readers for a limited time"

Get it here

DDL Triggers And Events

I promised I would write a 'real' SQl subject so here it is: DDL triggers and DDL events for use with DDL triggers

Let's start by creating 2 simple triggers

USE AdventureWorks
GO

CREATE TRIGGER ddlTestEvents1
ON DATABASE
FOR DROP_TABLE, ALTER_TABLE, CREATE_TABLE
AS
PRINT 'You must disable Trigger "ddlTestEvents1" to drop,create or alter tables!'
ROLLBACK;
GO

CREATE TRIGGER ddlTestEvents2
ON DATABASE
FOR DDL_TABLE_EVENTS
AS
PRINT 'You must disable Trigger "ddlTestEvents2" to drop, create or alter tables!'
ROLLBACK;
GO


Let's try creating a table
CREATE TABLE wasabi(id INT)
GO

And here is the error message, the first trigger fired
You must disable Trigger "ddlTestEvents1" to drop,create or alter tables!
Msg 3609, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
The transaction ended in the trigger. The batch has been aborted.

Let's disable the ddlTestEvents1 trigger and see what happens
DISABLE TRIGGER [ddlTestEvents1] ON DATABASE
GO

Let's try creating a table again
CREATE TABLE wasabi(id INT)
GO

Aha, same error message(almost) different trigger
You must disable Trigger "ddlTestEvents2" to drop, create or alter tables!
Msg 3609, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
The transaction ended in the trigger. The batch has been aborted.


so basically the event DDL_TABLE_EVENTS is the same as the DROP_TABLE, ALTER_TABLE, CREATE_TABLE events. To check that run the following code


SELECT name,te.type_desc,te.type
FROM sys.triggers t
JOIN sys.trigger_events te on t.object_id = te.object_id
WHERE t.parent_class=0
AND name IN('ddlTestEvents1','ddlTestEvents2')
ORDER BY name,te.type_desc

The ouput is the same for both triggers

name...........,type_desc,type
ddlTestEvents1,ALTER_TABLE,22
ddlTestEvents1, CREATE_TABLE,21
ddlTestEvents1, DROP_TABLE, 23
ddlTestEvents2, ALTER_TABLE, 22
ddlTestEvents2, CREATE_TABLE, 21
ddlTestEvents2, DROP_TABLE, 23

So when you use DDL_TABLE_EVENTS in the trigger, then 3 events will be in the sys.trigger_events catalog view. This is all fine but how do you find out these things? I can't find DDL_TABLE_EVENTS anywhere. Also I know that DDL_LOGIN_EVENTS is the same as CREATE LOGIN, ALTER LOGIN and DROP LOGIN combined but where is this documented?

Script out the ddlDatabaseTriggerLog trigger (this is the only trigger that is in the AdventureWorks database when you install SQL server), you will see a DDL_DATABASE_LEVEL_EVENTS event
when you run the following query (same as before, different trigger name) you will see that it returns 76 rows (basically all events)

SELECT name,te.type_desc,te.type
FROM sys.triggers t
JOIN sys.trigger_events te on t.object_id = te.object_id
WHERE t.parent_class=0
AND name ='ddlDatabaseTriggerLog'
ORDER BY name,te.type_desc


I am sure I will edit this (many times)
But first I will list all the events
You will see the events followed by a grouped event in red for example
CREATE_TABLE
ALTER_TABLE
DROP_TABLE
DDL_TABLE_EVENTS

I will have to go through all these events and use the sys.trigger_events to find this info out before I post this (unless someone points to in the right direction where to find this)

DDL Statements with Database Scope:
CREATE_APPLICATION_ROLE (Applies to CREATE APPLICATION ROLE statement and sp_addapprole. If a new schema is created, this event also triggers a CREATE_SCHEMA event.) ALTER_APPLICATION_ROLE (Applies to ALTER APPLICATION ROLE statement and sp_approlepassword.)
DROP_APPLICATION_ROLE (Applies to DROP APPLICATION ROLE statement and sp_dropapprole.)

CREATE_ASSEMBLY
ALTER_ASSEMBLY
DROP_ASSEMBLY
-- should be DDL_ASSEMBLY_EVENTS but who knows?


ALTER_AUTHORIZATION_DATABASE (Applies to ALTER AUTHORIZATION statement when ON DATABASE is specified, and sp_changedbowner.)

CREATE_CERTIFICATE
ALTER_CERTIFICATE
DROP_CERTIFICATE

CREATE_CONTRACT
DROP_CONTRACT

GRANT_DATABASE
DENY_DATABASE
REVOKE_DATABASE

CREATE_EVENT_NOTIFICATION
DROP_EVENT_NOTIFICATION

CREATE_FUNCTION
ALTER_FUNCTION
DROP_FUNCTION

CREATE_INDEX
ALTER_INDEX
DROP_INDEX

CREATE_MESSAGE_TYPE
ALTER_MESSAGE_TYPE
DROP_MESSAGE_TYPE

CREATE_PARTITION_FUNCTION
ALTER_PARTITION_FUNCTION
DROP_PARTITION_FUNCTION

CREATE_PARTITION_SCHEME
ALTER_PARTITION_SCHEME
DROP_PARTITION_SCHEME

CREATE_PROCEDURE
ALTER_PROCEDURE
DROP_PROCEDURE

CREATE_QUEUE
ALTER_QUEUE
DROP_QUEUE

CREATE_REMOTE_SERVICE_BINDING
ALTER_REMOTE_SERVICE_BINDING
DROP_REMOTE_SERVICE_BINDING

CREATE_ROLE (Applies to CREATE ROLE statement, sp_addrole, and sp_addgroup.)
ALTER_ROLE
DROP_ROLE (Applies to DROP ROLE statement, sp_droprole, and sp_dropgroup.)

CREATE_ROUTE
ALTER_ROUTE
DROP_ROUTE

CREATE_SCHEMA (Applies to CREATE SCHEMA statement, sp_addrole, sp_adduser, sp_addgroup, and sp_grantdbaccess.)
ALTER_SCHEMA (Applies to ALTER SCHEMA statement and sp_changeobjectowner.)
DROP_SCHEMA

CREATE_SERVICE
ALTER_SERVICE
DROP_SERVICE

CREATE_STATISTICS
DROP_STATISTICS
UPDATE_STATISTICS

CREATE_SYNONYM
DROP_SYNONYM

CREATE_TABLE
ALTER_TABLE
DROP_TABLE
DDL_TABLE_EVENTS

CREATE_TRIGGER
ALTER_TRIGGER
DROP_TRIGGER

CREATE_TYPE (Applies to CREATE TYPE statement and sp_addtype.)
DROP_TYPE (Applies to DROP TYPE statement and sp_droptype.)

CREATE_USER (Applies to CREATE USER statement, sp_adduser, and sp_grantdbaccess.)
ALTER_USER
DROP_USER (Applies to DROP USER statement, sp_dropuser, and sp_revokedbaccess.)

CREATE_VIEW
ALTER_VIEW
DROP_VIEW

CREATE_XML_SCHEMA_COLLECTION
ALTER_XML_SCHEMA_COLLECTION
DROP_XML_SCHEMA_COLLECTION

DDL Statements with Server Scope:
ALTER_AUTHORIZATION_SERVER

CREATE_DATABASE
ALTER_DATABASE
DROP_DATABASE

CREATE_ENDPOINT
ALTER_ENDPOINT
DROP_ENDPOINT

CREATE_LOGIN (Applies to CREATE LOGIN statement, sp_addlogin, sp_grantlogin, xp_grantlogin, and sp_denylogin when used on a nonexistent login that must be implicitly created.)
ALTER_LOGIN (Applies to ALTER LOGIN statement, sp_defaultdb, sp_defaultlanguage, sp_password, and sp_change_users_login when Auto_Fix is specified.)
DROP_LOGIN (Applies to DROP LOGIN statement, sp_droplogin, sp_revokelogin, and xp_revokelogin.)
DDL_LOGIN_EVENTS

GRANT_SERVER
DENY_SERVER
REVOKE_SERVER

And like I said I will edit this after I run my tests

Top 5 Posts For June 2006

Below are the top 5 posts according to Google Analytics for the month of June

COALESCE And ISNULL Differences is number one, the big reason for this is that SQL Server Magazine linked to it


Here are the posts in order by pageviews descending

COALESCE And ISNULL Differences
OPENROWSET And Excel Problems
Login failed for user 'sa'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection. SQL 2005
Split a comma delimited string fast!
SQL Query Optimizations

And I promise I will have some real SQL code later today

Top SQL Server Google Searches For June 2006

These are the top SQL Searches on this site for the month of June. I have left out searches that have nothing to do with SQL Server or programming. Here are the results...

dbreindex microsoft sqlserver forum
mysql grant privileges column level
site:sqlservercode.blogspot.com union
-310 sql error
"SQL Server Everywhere"
Collation
replace last two characters
grant update mysql syntax
"The provider ran out of memory"
money
-310 sql
how to sql to excel
Msg 2627, Level 14, State 1
ADD_DAYS oracle syntax
query for SQL bit checking

List DDL Triggers By Using The sys.triggers Catalog View

How do you list DDL triggers in SQL Server 2005? It's very easy you just query the sys.triggers catalog view. Let's try an example

USE adventureworks
GO

--Create our trigger
CREATE TRIGGER trDropTable
ON DATABASE
FOR DROP_TABLE
AS
PRINT 'You can not drop tables'
ROLLBACK
GO


--Create the table
CREATE TABLE abc(id INT)
GO

--Let's drop the table
DROP TABLE abc
GO

Our trigger works because the following message is displayed after we tried to drop the table

You can not drop tables
Msg 3609, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
The transaction ended in the trigger. The batch has been aborted.

In order to list DDL triggers you need to use parent_id = 0
SELECT * FROM sys.triggers
WHERE parent_id = 0

In order to list DML triggers you need to use parent_id <> 0
SELECT * FROM sys.triggers
WHERE parent_id <> 0

And if you want to list all triggers you can just ommit the WHERE clause

Murphy's Law And SQL Server

Why do things break the moment that the person who handles something is on vacation?
Here is the full story. A co-worker goes on vacation, he has his work on a specific server, this server is in our lab and not on the MCN (Mission Critical Network). First let me tell you that we are considered ‘renegades’ and that we don’t get operation support for some of our machines because we don’t use corporate standards and we need full control over our machines.
Anyway the server worked fine for 2 years, co-worker goes on vacation to Japan and the very next day I am getting crazy errors like can not use ad-hoc queries use linked server instead???? I click on the linked server and get OLEDB FoxPro driver missing errors? Fine let’s restart, simple enough right? Wrong! After hitting stop from Service Manager the status is ‘stopping’, after 20 minutes it is still ‘stopping’
Mmm I don’t want to to a hard reboot because I can corrupt all the databases and I don’t even know where half of the backups are (I don’t use this server). Okay let’s try NET STOP MSSQLSERVER. Nope application is in transition and can not be stopped error. Then it occurred to me that maybe we got hit by the slammer worm. Since it’s stopping I can not execute serverproperty so I right click on the sqlserver.exe file and look up the version number. It’s 2039, good that’s SP4. Then I hit restart from the start button and it restarted and everything was fine.

So what is Murphy's Law? Here is the Wikipedia link in case you want to know
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy's_law

DELETE and Subquery (IN) Problem

When you have a DELETE used with an IN (subquery) all rows will be deleted if your subquery is wrong
What do I mean by this? Let's say you have a table named Table1 with 1 column, the name of that column is Col1
When you do SELECT ID FROM Table1 you get an error.
However when you do
DELETE FROM TEST1 WHERE ID IN
(SELECT ID FROM Table1)
all rows are deleted


Let's start with our test

--Create tables and data
CREATE TABLE TEST1 (ID INT)
GO
CREATE TABLE TEST2 (BLA INT)
GO

INSERT INTO TEST1 VALUES(1)
INSERT INTO TEST1 VALUES(2)
INSERT INTO TEST1 VALUES(3)
INSERT INTO TEST2 VALUES(1)
GO

-- The following will raise an error
SELECT ID FROM TEST2 WHERE BLA = 1
GO
--Server: Msg 207, Level 16, State 3, Line 1
--Invalid column name 'ID'.


-- The following statement will delete the entire table
DELETE FROM TEST1 WHERE ID IN
(SELECT ID FROM TEST2 WHERE BLA = 1)
GO
--(3 row(s) affected)


--One way of doing it
DELETE FROM TEST1 WHERE ID IN
(SELECT B.ID FROM TEST2 B WHERE BLA = 1)
--Server: Msg 207, Level 16, State 3, Line 1
--Invalid column name 'ID'.


--Another way
DELETE FROM TEST1 WHERE exists
(SELECT * FROM TEST2 B WHERE BLA = 1 AND b.ID =TEST1.ID)
--Server: Msg 207, Level 16, State 3, Line 1
--Invalid column name 'ID'.

The Difference Between Unique Constraint And Unique Index

Do you know the the difference between an unique constraint, and an unique index?
If you do not or if you are not sure then make sure you read the following article:
Unique constraint, or unique index

That article also has a link on how to do selective uniqueness handling

SQL Server Datetime Datatypes

Since I am kind of busy (Work, House, FIFA World Cup Soccer/Football) I said that I would post links to great SQL Server stuff by other people, so here is a gem that you should definitely read if you have any questions about dates in SQL Server. The name of this page is "The ultimate guide to the datetime datatypes" and it is written by SQL Server MVP Tibor Karaszi and it covers the following things.


Date and time datatypes in SQL Server
Date and time formats
Date and time formats for input
Recommendations for input
Warnings and common misconceptions
Output of datetime values
Searching for datetime values
Getting rid of the time portion
Tip: Always set the time to the same value
Other tips, from SQL Server MVP Steve Kass
Why is 1753 the earliest date for datetime?
References and reading tips

So what are you waiting for, click on the link below?

http://www.karaszi.com/SQLServer/info_datetime.asp

3.5 Ways To Show Stored Procedure Code In SQL Server 2005

There are four (more on that later) ways in SQL Server 2005 to get the create procedure script. Why does the title say 3.5, well that is because the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES view only returns the first 4000 characters. So if your proc is 5000 characters then you are out of luck (not really since you can use the other 3 methods)

So let’s start, we will be using the uspGetBillOfMaterials stored procedure in the AdventureWorks database

sp_helptext
This is the same as in SQL server 2000 nothing new here

sp_helptext 'dbo.uspGetBillOfMaterials'



sys.sql_modules
So this is a new view in SQL Server 2005, what we need is the definition column

SELECT definition
FROM sys.sql_modules
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID('dbo.uspGetBillOfMaterials')



OBJECT_DEFINITION()
This is a new function in SQL Server 2005, just combine it with OBJECT_ID to get the proc code back

SELECT OBJECT_DEFINITION (OBJECT_ID('dbo.uspGetBillOfMaterials'))



INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES
This is the problematic one, if the ROUTINE_DEFINITION is greater than 4000 characters then it will be truncated

SELECT ROUTINE_DEFINITION
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES
WHERE SPECIFIC_NAME ='uspGetBillOfMaterials'
AND SPECIFIC_SCHEMA= 'dbo'

5 Reasons I Will Blog A Little Less The Next 6 Weeks

Because of these 5 reasons
A) I just moved into a new house and I still have a lot of things to do
B) My wife is 33 weeks pregnant with twins and I have to help her a lot, we also have a son who is 2 (sometimes he acts as if he is in his terrible two’s but mostly not)
C) I still have a lot of things to do to prepare for the babies (mostly buying stuff)
D) I also have a ‘real’ job and we are launching some new products soon
E) It’s the FIFA 2006 World Cup (soccer), I have 2 passports (Dutch and Croatian, but I live in the US) so I have to watch at least all the games when one of my countries is playing

I will be posting a little less of my own content but I will link to other great posts
So today I would like to point out to you a great series of posts about query plans and query executions. I found this blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/craigfr/) after reading Louis Davidson’s blog (http://drsql.spaces.msn.com/)

Here are the posts and they are in FIFO order
The Building Blocks of Query Execution
Viewing Query Plans
Properties of Iterators

Use OBJECTPROPERTY To Generate A List Of Object Types

How do you query the sysobjects system table and get the object type back for every single object
You can use the type and xtype columns, these contain the following data

xtype
Object type. Can be one of these object types:
C = CHECK constraint
D = Default or DEFAULT constraint
F = FOREIGN KEY constraint
L = Log
FN = Scalar function
IF = Inlined table-function
P = Stored procedure
PK = PRIMARY KEY constraint (type is K)
RF = Replication filter stored procedure
S = System table
TF = Table function
TR = Trigger
U = User table
UQ = UNIQUE constraint (type is K)
V = View
X = Extended stored procedure


type
Object type. Can be one of these values:
C = CHECK constraint
D = Default or DEFAULT constraint
F = FOREIGN KEY constraint
FN = Scalar function
IF = Inlined table-function
K = PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE constraint
L = Log
P = Stored procedure
R = Rule
RF = Replication filter stored procedure
S = System table
TF = Table function
TR = Trigger
U = User table
V = View
X = Extended stored procedure

Or you can use OBJECTPROPERTY. OBJECTPROPERTY is better in my opinion because you can see right away what you are looking for
For example OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsUserTable' ) is much easier to understand than type = 'u'

Bu using CASE with OBJECTPROPERTY we can generate a nice report

SELECT name,CASE
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsSystemTable' ) =1 THEN 'System Table'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsProcedure' ) =1 THEN 'Procedure'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsPrimaryKey' ) =1 THEN 'Primary Key'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsDefault' ) =1 THEN 'Default'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsForeignKey' ) =1 THEN 'Foreign Key'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsCheckCnst' ) =1 THEN 'Check Constraint'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsView' ) =1 THEN 'View'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsConstraint' ) =1 THEN 'Constraint'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsTrigger' ) =1 THEN 'Trigger'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsScalarFunction' ) =1 THEN 'Scalar Function'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsTableFunction' ) =1 THEN 'Table Valued Function'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsRule' ) =1 THEN 'Rule'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsExtendedProc' ) =1 THEN 'Extended Stored Procedure'
WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY ( id , 'IsUserTable' ) =1 THEN 'User Table'
END ObjectType, *
FROM sysobjects

And of course there are a bunch of INFORMATION_SCHEMA views that you can use to get some of the same information back

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.CHECK_CONSTRAINTS
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.CONSTRAINT_TABLE_USAGE
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.REFERENTIAL_CONSTRAINTS
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS
SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS

Scriptio 0.5.5 Released

Bill Graziano has released the latest version of his Scriptio tool. What is scriptio?

From Bill's site: "After working with SQL Server 2005 I've discovered that I can't script out one object per file and include both the DROP and CREATE in the same file. Which is driving me absolutely crazy! So I wrote a little utility and thought I'd share it."

You can get the lates version here

Check For Valid SMALLDATETIME

Sometime you get data from different sources and the dates are stored in a varchar columnYou need to store that data in your database. The column has a smalldatetime data typeHow do you make sure that the data is correct? You have to use ISDATE and also check that the dates are between 1/1/1900 and 6/6/2079
Here is some code to test that out

CREATE TABLE TestDates(VarCharDate VARCHAR(30))


-- Good smalldatetime
INSERT TestDates
VALUES ('19000101')

--Bad smalldatetime, less than 19000101
INSERT TestDates
VALUES ('18990101')

--Bad smalldatetime, greater than 20790606
INSERT TestDates
VALUES ('20790607')

-- Good smalldatetime
INSERT TestDates
VALUES ('20790606')


--Bad date
INSERT TestDates
VALUES ('abababa')

--This will Fail
SELECT CASE
WHEN ISDATE(VarCharDate) =1 THEN
CONVERT(SMALLDATETIME,VarCharDate)
ELSE
NULL
END
FROM TestDates

--This will run fine
SELECT VarCharDate,
CASE
WHEN ISDATE(VarCharDate) =1
THEN CASE WHEN VarCharDate BETWEEN '19000101' AND '20790606'
THEN CONVERT(SMALLDATETIME,VarCharDate)
ELSE NULL
END
END
FROM TestDates


Flo has left a comment, he/she has suggested to convert to datetime in the second case in the case that the date is not stored in the YYYYMMDD format
Here is the suggestion

DECLARE @VarCharDate VARCHAR(100)
SET @VarCharDate = '12/30/2070'

-- Modification:
-- Use CONVERT(DATETIME, @VarCharDate) to check the varchar in any possible format
SELECT @VarCharDate,
CASE
WHEN ISDATE(@VarCharDate) =1
THEN CASE WHEN CONVERT(DATETIME,@VarCharDate) BETWEEN '19000101' AND '20790606'
THEN CONVERT(SMALLDATETIME,@VarCharDate)
ELSE NULL
END
END

COALESCE And ISNULL Differences

I decided to do a quick post about two differences between COALESCE and ISNULL

Run the following block of code


-- The result is 7, integer math
SELECT 15 / ISNULL(CONVERT(INT,NULL), 2.00)

--The result is 7.5, which is correct
SELECT 15 / COALESCE(CONVERT(INT,NULL), 2.00)

You will see that the result is not the same ISNULL does integer math while COALESCE does not

COALESCE correctly promotes its arguments to the highest data type in the expression list.
ISNULL just looks at the first datatype, which is an integer (15) and makes everything an int
COALESCE looks at 2.00 and 15 and then promotes the integer to decimal

Another example is returning the first non null value, ISNULL can only take 2 values while COALESCE can take a whole lot more
Here we have 4 variables and all except for one are null

DECLARE @Var1 VARCHAR(20)
DECLARE @Var2 VARCHAR(20)
DECLARE @Var3 VARCHAR(20)
DECLARE @Var4 VARCHAR(20)

SELECT @Var4 = 'ABC'


--This will return ABC
SELECT COALESCE(@Var1,@Var2,@Var3,@Var4)

[Edit] Roji. P. Thomas has an excellent article with even more detailed examples. The links is below.
http://toponewithties.blogspot.com/2004/08/differences-between-coalesce-and.html
[/Edit]

Retrieve Column Info Of Table Valued Functions By Using INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINE_COLUMNS

How do you retrieve the columns of Table Valued Functions?
This question was posted to day in the microsoft.public.sqlserver.programming
forum. Although I answered the question I must admit that I have never used the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINE_COLUMNS before

So let's see how it works
First create a User-Defined Functions that returns a table data type


USE pubs
GO

CREATE FUNCTION LargeOrder ( @FreightParm 
style="color:#3333ff;">money )
RETURNS @OrderShipperTab TABLE
   (
 OrderPrice       MONEY,
     OrderDate   DATETIME
    )
AS
BEGIN
   INSERT @OrderShipperTab
        SELECT OrderPrice, OrderDate
         FROM Orders
        WHERE OrderPrice > @FreightParm
   RETURN
END

--Let's test the function
-- This will return all orders with an order price greater than $40

SELECT *
FROM LargeOrder( 40 )


--Now let's get the column information

SELECT TABLE_NAME,COLUMN_NAME,DATA_TYPE,ORDINAL_POSITION
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINE_COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME ='LargeOrder'
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

Rename A column In A Table With sp_rename

How do you rename a column in a SQL Server table without using Enterprise Manager/SSMS of course, T_SQL only.
This is a frequent question in the newsgroups and it's causing some confusion for people because you would assume that

you would use the ALTER TABLE syntax, instead of that you have to use sp_rename to rename the column

--Create the table
CREATE TABLE TestRename (id INT,[Some[[Col] INT)

--Do a select to check the column name
SELECT * FROM TestRename

-- This is how you change the dataype
ALTER TABLE TestRename
ALTER COLUMN [Some[[Col] VARCHAR(50)

--this is how you rename the column
EXEC sp_rename 'TestRename.[Some[[Col]', 'SomeCol', 'COLUMN'

--Let’s check again, you will see that the column name has changed
SELECT * FROM TestRename

After changing the column name with sp_rename you will get the following warning
Caution: Changing any part of an object name could break scripts and stored procedures.
The COLUMN was renamed to 'SomeCol'.

Data Dude

Last week I told you about Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals (Data Dude)
Kimberly L. Tripp has a post on her blog with 17 links to websites and 5 links to blogs

Here are the Data Dude team blogs:
Gert Drapers' Blog
Cameron Skinner's Blog
Richard Waymire's Blog
Thomas Murphy's Blog
Database Professional's Team Blog

Vist Kimberly's blog for the whole post

INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA SQL Server 2005 Change

Everyone keeps saying;” Don’t use the system tables directly but use the ANSI views instead”
So instead of sysobjects use INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES. In SQL Server 2000 instead of using the sysdatabases system table I always used the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA view to query for the databases. It turns out that that view was no really ANSI compliant to begin with (since SQL server 200 didn’t have schemas of course)
If you run the following query in SQL Server 2000
SELECT CATALOG_NAME, SCHEMA_OWNER
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA

You will get a result like this

CATALOG_NAME, SCHEMA_OWNER
-------------------------
master..............dbo
tempdb..............dbo
model...............dbo
msdb................dbo
pubs................dbo
Northwind...........dbo

If you run the query in SQL Server 2005 the CATALOG_NAME
will be the same
for every row (it will be the current database name)

However if you run
SELECT SCHEMA _NAME, SCHEMA_OWNER
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA

You will get the following result set

SCHEMA _NAME, SCHEMA_OWNER
--------------------------------------
dbo.................dbo
guest...............guest
INFORMATION_SCHEMA..INFORMATION_SCHEMA
sys.................sys
HumanResources......dbo
Person..............dbo
Production..........dbo
Purchasing..........dbo
Sales...............dbo
SalesData...........dbo
db_owner............db_owner
db_accessadmin......db_accessadmin
db_securityadmin....db_securityadmin
db_ddladmin.........db_ddladmin
db_backupoperator...db_backupoperator
db_datareader.......db_datareader
db_datawriter.......db_datawriter
db_denydatareader...db_denydatareader
db_denydatawriter...db_denydatawriter

What can you do to query the database name?
Well you can do this

SELECT name FROM master.sys.databases ORDER BY name

Or

SELECT name FROM master..sysdatabases ORDER BY name

According to books on line:
In earlier versions of SQL Server, the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA view returned all databases in an instance of SQL Server. In SQL Server 2005, the view returns all schemas in a database. This behavior complies with the SQL Standard. For more information, see SCHEMATA (Transact-SQL).

Use DATEADD And DATEDIFF To Get The Start And End Date For A Quarter

In the microsoft.public.sqlserver.programming forum a person asked how to get the first day of the current quarter. My answer was this: SELECT DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, GETDATE())+0, 0)
So I decided to expand on that here

--Start date of the current quarter
SELECT DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, GETDATE())+0, 0)

--start and end dates of the current quarter
SELECT DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, GETDATE())+0, 0) AS FirstDayOfQuarter,
DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, GETDATE())+1, -1) AS LastDayOfQuarter


--start day of the quarter for 20060501
SELECT DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, '20060501')+0, 0)

--start and end dates of the quarter for 20060501
SELECT DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, '20060501')+0, 0) AS FirstDayOfQuarter,
DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, '20060501')+1, -1) AS LastDayOfQuarter


--start and end dates of the quarter for 20060201
SELECT DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, '20060201')+0, 0) AS FirstDayOfQuarter,
DATEADD(qq, DATEDIFF(qq, 0, '20060201')+1, -1) AS LastDayOfQuarter

Top 5 Posts For May 2006

Below are the top 5 posts according to Google Analytics for the month of May

Login failed for user 'sa'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection. SQL 2005
OPENROWSET And Excel Problems
Fun With SQL Server Update Triggers
SQL Query Optimizations
Split a comma delimited string fast!

Top SQL Server Google Searches For May 2006

These are the top SQL Searches on this site for the month of May. I have left out searches that have nothing to do with SQL Server or programming. Here are the results...

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