Only In A Database Can You Get 1000% + Improvement By Changing A Few Lines Of Code

Take a look at this query.

SELECT * FROM

(

SELECT customer_id, ‘MTD’ AS record_type, COUNT(*), SUM(…), AVG(…)

FROM payment_table

WHERE YEAR(payment_dt) = YEAR(GETDATE())

and MONTH(payment_dt) = MONTH(GETDATE())

GROUP BY customer_id) MTD_payments

UNION ALL

(

SELECT customer_id, ‘YTD’ AS record_type, COUNT(*), SUM(…), AVG(…)

FROM payment_table

WHERE

WHERE YEAR(payment_dt) = YEAR(GETDATE())

GROUP BY customer_id) YTD_payments

UNION ALL

(

SELECT customer_id, ‘LTD’ AS record_type, COUNT(*), SUM(…), AVG(…)

FROM payment_table) LTD_payments

) payments_report

ORDER BY customer_id, record_type

Can you see the problem?
A person had this query, it would run for over 24 hours. Wow, that is pretty bad, I don't think I had ever written something that ran over an hour, and the ones I did were mostly defragmentation and update statistics jobs.

The problem is that the following piece of code

where year(payment_dt) = year(getDate())
and month(payment_dt) = month(getDate())

is not sargable. First what does it mean to be sargable? A query is said to be sargable if the DBMS engine can take advantage of an index to speed up the execution of the query (using index seeks, not covering indexes). The term is derived from a contraction of Search ARGument Able.

This query is not sargable because there is a function on the column, whenever you use a function on the column you will not get an index seek but an index scan. The difference between an index seek and an index scan can be explained like this: when searching for something in a book, you go to the index in the back find the page number and go to the page, that is an index seek. When looking for something in a book you go from page one until the last page, read all the words on all the ages and get what you need, that was an index scan. Do you see how much more expensive in terms of performance that was?

Let's get back to the query, what can we do to make this piece of code use an index seek?
where year(payment_dt) = year(getDate())
and month(payment_dt) = month(getDate())

You would change it to this:
where payment_dt >= dateadd(mm, datediff(mm, 0, getdate())+0, 0)
and payment_dt < dateadd(mm, datediff(mm, 0, getdate())+1, 0)

You can see the complete question on the MSDN forum site here:
http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3746751&SiteID=1
The Person said that his query went from over 24 hours to 36 seconds. Wow!! That is very significant. hardware cannot help you out if you have bad queries like that.

The same exact day I answered a very similar question, take a look here: http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3752248&SiteID=1

The person had this

AND DATEDIFF(d, '08/10/2008', DateCreated) >= 0

AND DATEDIFF(d, DateCreated, '08/15/2008') >= 0

I told him to change it to this

AND DateCreated >= '08/10/2008'
and DateCreated <= '08/15/2008'

And that solved that query. If you are interested in some more performance, I have written some Query Optimization items on the LessThanDot Wiki. Below are some direct links

Case Sensitive Search
No Functions on Left Side of Operator
Query Optimizations With Dates
Optimization: Set Nocount On
No Math In Where Clause
Don't Use (select *), but List Columns

If you are interested in some blogposts about dates, take a look at these two which I wrote earlier
How Are Dates Stored In SQL Server?
Do You Know How Between Works With Dates?

SQL Tip, Compiling Your SQL Without Running It to See If It Would Run

Let's say you have a big SQL script with a ton of code and you want to make sure it runs but you don't want to execute it because it updates tables, deletes data etc etc.
Take this simple example

SELECT GETDATE()
GO
SELECT 1/asasasas
GO


You can probably guess that the second statement is not valid, when you have a lot of code it is more difficult to spot these things.
Execeute the code above and you will get this


(1 row(s) affected)

Server: Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Invalid column name 'asasasas'.

SQL server has the SET NOEXEC statement. From BOL:

When SET NOEXEC is ON, Microsoft® SQL Server™ compiles each batch of
Transact-SQL statements but does not execute them. When SET NOEXEC is OFF, all
batches are executed after compilation.

The execution of statements in
SQL Server consists of two phases: compilation and execution. This setting is
useful for having SQL Server validate the syntax and object names in
Transact-SQL code when executing. It is also useful for debugging statements
that would usually be part of a larger batch of statements.

The setting
of SET NOEXEC is set at execute or run time and not at parse time.

So execute the code below

SET NOEXEC ON
GO

SELECT GETDATE()
GO
SELECT 1/asasasas
GO
SET NOEXEC OFF
GO



As you can see the output is the following:
Server: Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Invalid column name 'asasasas'.


You never see the getdate. Parsing that code will not throw an error and because of deferred name resolution you can fat-finger table names and it will parse without a problem.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Available For Download

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=fbee1648-7106-44a7-9649-6d9f6d58056e&displayLang=en

Here is the link to the 831MB ISO
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=27673C47-B3B5-4C67-BD99-84E525B5CE61&displaylang=en


Finally, Now I can also install SQL Server 2008 :-)

SQL Server 2008 is RTM

that is right and you can already download it from MSDN

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR July CTP Released

Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR July CTP is available for download

In addition to providing support for SQL Server 2008 database projects, this release incorporates many previously released Power Tools as well as several new features. The new features include distinct Build and Deploy phases, Static Code Analysis and improved integration with SQL CLR projects.

Database Edition no longer requires a Design Database. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to install an instance of SQL Express or SQL Server prior to using Database Edition.

Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

sp_indexinfo an enhanced index information procedure

Tibor Karaszi has created a very useful index information stored procedure for SQL Server 2005 and up.
This stored procedure will tell you the following"

What indexes exists for a or each table(s)
Clustered, non-clustered or heap
Columns in the index
Included columns in the index
Unique or nonunique
Number rows in the table
Space usage
How frequently the indexes has been used

Check it out here: http://www.karaszi.com/SQLServer/util_sp_indexinfo.asp

Awesome Collection Of ASP.NET Hacks, Tips and Tricks

We added a bunch of ASP.NET Hacks, Tips and Tricks

we have the following categories
1 Applications
2 Caching
3 Controls
4 Database
5 Dates
6 Debugging
7 Email
8 Encryption
9 Files
10 Images
11 Javascript
12 Objects and Classes
13 Pages
14 Sessions
15 Strings
16 Validation
17 Visual Studio
18 Web

The URL to these hacks is here: http://wiki.lessthandot.com/index.php/ASP.NET_Hacks
Bookmark that URL because we will be adding more hacks, tips and tricks

Interview With SSIS Guru Jamie Thomson

As promised yesterday, here is the link to the interview I did with jamie Thomson: Interview With SSIS Guru Jamie Thomson

I tried to keep it a secret but it is all over the internet: I am a SQL Server MVP

So all over the internet is exaggerated,I became a SQL Server MVP today and was not going to do a blog post about it. However some other people had other ideas

Congratulations, Denis!
SQL Server MVP - Denis Gobo

and even an announcement on lessthandot

My profile is here: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile=BCCF7416-DA4E-4D73-83E2-65FD61BAB16D

Stay tuned, I will have an interview with Jamie Thomson tomorrow

Working On SQL Admin Hacks, Tips and Tricks

I haven't posted for a while because I have been working on SQL Admin Hacks, Tips and Tricks lately. it is still a work in progress but below is what is on the wiki currently. It is not yet categorized but we will do that once we get more of these hacks done. To see what it will look like when it is done take a look at the SQL Server Programming Hacks

Can you think of any admin stuff you would like to see? This is what we have right now

Find Primary Keys and Columns Used in SQL Server
Get The Domain Name Of Your SQL Server Machine With T-SQL
Grant Execute/SELECT Permissions For All User Defined Functions To A User
Grant Execute Permissions For All Stored Procedures To A User
Kill All Active Connections To A Database
SQL Server 2008: When Was The Server Last Started?
Check If Auto Update Statistics Is Enabled By Using DATABASEPROPERTY
Three Way To List All Databases On Your Server
Generate A List Of Object Types By Using OBJECTPROPERTY
How to find all the tables and views in a database
Find Out Server Roles For a SQL Server Login
Which Service Pack Is Installed On My SQL Server
Test SQL Server Login Permissions With SETUSER
Login failed for user 'sa'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection. SQL 2000
Login failed for user 'sa'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection. SQL 2005
Compare Tables With Tablediff
Find All Tables Without Triggers In SQL Server
Find All Tables With Triggers In SQL Server
Create Stored Procedures That Run At SQL Server Startup
Cycle The SQL Server Error Log
How to read sql server error messages
Use OBJECT_DEFINITION To Track SQL Server Stored Procedure Changes
SQL Compare Without The Price Tag
How To Get The Database Name For The Current User Process
How To Find Out Which Columns Have Defaults And What Those Default Values Are
Fixing Cannot add, update, or delete a job that originated from an MSX Server Error after renaming a server

SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 Available To The General Public For Download

SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 has been made available to the general public.

There are 2 versions (and 3 flavors of each) ISO or DVD

Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=35F53843-03F7-4ED5-8142-24A4C024CA05&displaylang=en

Don't forget to also visit the SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 connect site here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=5395

Puzzle: Friday the Thirteenths

There is a puzzle on LessThanDot

The goal is to identify all friday the thirteenths for a given timeframe. We'll use a relatively small number of years, like 10. This should make it a little easier in procedural languages.

I posted my SQL solution, what about you?

Go here: Friday the Thirteenths and show me what you got. Make sure to use the [hide][/hide] tags so you don't spoil it for other people

Less Than Dot A New community Site Has Been Launched

Myself and a bunch of friends have been working on Less Than Dot for a while now. The site has a forum, blogs and a wiki. More info why we started Less Than Dot and who we are can be found here: http://www.lessthandot.com/aboutus.php

Since I am mostly a SQL guy, I wrote a collection of SQL Server hacks. This collection of SQL hacks is available on the Wiki, right now we have 8 sections and between 70 and 80 hacks. Ideally we will have more hacks and we will also have a SQL admin hacks page in the future.

SQL Server Hacks Sections
* 1 NULLS
* 2 Dates
* 3 Sorting, Limiting Ranking, Transposing and Pivoting
* 4 Handy tricks
* 5 Pitfalls
* 6 Query Optimization
* 7 Undocumented but handy
* 8 Usefull Admin stuff For The Developer


Below are some direct links to a couple hacks, you can also get a list of all the hacks on the wiki itself here: SQL Server Programming Hacks

Trouble With ISDATE And Converting To SMALLDATETIME
Row To Column (PIVOT)
Column To Row (UNPIVOT)
Five ways to return all rows from one table which are not in another table
Order IP Addresses
Use XACT_STATE() To Check For Doomed Transactions
Three differences between COALESCE and ISNULL
Case sensitive search
Use the sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats dmv to check if indexes are being used

Hopefully you will like the site and find some good content, if you have a question then don't hesitate to ask it in a forum.

SQL Teaser uniqueidentifier

Create this table

CREATE TABLE #bla (SomeVal uniqueidentifier)
INSERT #bla VALUES('D903D52D-DBFA-4904-9D95-F265152A391F')

what do you think this will return?


SELECT * FROM #bla
WHERE SomeVal = 'D903D52D-DBFA-4904-9D95-F265152A391F12345678910'
UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM #bla
WHERE SomeVal = 'D903D52D-DBFA-4904-9D95-F265152A391F1'

Surprised?

What about this?

SELECT * FROM #bla
WHERE SomeVal = CONVERT(uniqueidentifier,'D903D52D-DBFA-4904-9D95-F265152A391F12345678910')

Interview With Erland Sommarskog About SQL Server and Transact SQL

I have interviewed Erland Sommarskog, you can find that interview here: Interview With Erland Sommarskog About SQL Server and Transact SQL

Enjoy

Interview With Craig Freedman About Indexing, Query Plans And Performance

I interviewed Craig Freedman about Indexing, Query Plans And Performance and more. You can find that interview here: Interview With Craig Freedman About Indexing, Query Plans And Performance

Enjoy

I have a question for you on DB development blunders!

Last week Kalen Delaney wrote Did You Know? I have a question for you on DBA Blunders! I though the comments were very interesting, S we did the DBA part but what about developers? What are some of the worst blunders you have seen?

Here are a couple of things

Starting a begin tran, then some insert/update command, never commiting but minimizing the window.


Here is my all time favorite, can you reduce this by 90%?


declare @Token int
select @Token = 51234567

declare @val int


if left(@Token,1) = 1
select @val = 1
else if left(@Token,1) = 2
select @val = 2
else if left(@Token,1) = 3
select @val = 3
else if left(@Token,1) = 4
select @val = 4
else if left(@Token,1) = 5
select @val = 5
else if left(@Token,1) = 6
select @val = 6
else if left(@Token,1) = 7
select @val = 7
else if left(@Token,1) = 8
select @val = 8
else if left(@Token,1) = 9
select @val = 9
else if left(@Token,1) = 0
select @val = 0


select @val


Actually we put that on the whiteboard after we found it in our code and every time the developer wanted something we teased him about it...Oh you mean like that (pointing to the whiteboard)


What about changing the datatype from smallint to int in the table but keeping the params smallint in the proc.....mmmm why do I get a conversion in the execution plan?





So let's here some of what you have seen others write, we all know we couldn't write stuff like that ourselves right? :-)

Spring Cleaning, Getting Rid Of Some Books

I did some spring cleaning yesterday, I got rid of some old or obsolete books. I asked some people at work if they want any of these books and I believe all the books except for the JCL book are about to be given away.

I got rid of these books because:
I got a new version
I don't use the technology anymore
The book is obsolete


Click on the image and you can see a bigger version on my flickr page.

SSMS Tools PACK 1.0 is now available

Mladen Prajdić just released SSMS Tools PACK 1.0. SSMS Tools PACK is an Add-In (Add-On) for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express.

Here are some of the features

Uppercase/Lowercase keywords.
Run one script on multiple databases.
Copy execution plan bitmaps to clipboard.
Search Results in Grid Mode and Execution Plans.
Generate Insert statements for a single table, the whole database or current resultsets in grids.
Query Execution History (Soft Source Control).
Text document Regions and Debug sections.
Running custom scripts from Object explorer's Context menu.
CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) stored procedure generation.
New query template.

Check it out here: http://www.ssmstoolspack.com/Main.aspx

How to log when a function is called?

This question came up today and here is one way of doing it. It requires running xp_cmdshell so this is probably not such a good idea.
The problem with functions is that you cannot just insert into any table. INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements modifying table variables local to the function.
EXECUTE statements calling an extended stored procedures are allowed.
So with this in mind we know that we can call xp_cmdshell, from xp_cmdshell we can use osql
Let's take a look
We will be using tempdb


--Create the table
USE tempdb
go
CREATE TABLE LogMeNow (SomeValue varchar(50), SomeDate datetime default getdate())
go

--Here is the proc
CREATE PROC prLog
@SomeValue varchar(50)
AS
INSERT LogMeNow (SomeValue) VALUES(@SomeValue)
go

--And here is the function
CREATE FUNCTION fnBla(@id int)
RETURNS int
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @SQL varchar(500)
SELECT @SQL = 'osql -S' +@@servername +' -E -q "exec tempdb..prLog ''fnBla''"'
EXEC master..xp_cmdshell @SQL
RETURN @id
END

Now call the function a couple of times

SELECT dbo.fnBla(1)
SELECT dbo.fnBla(2)
SELECT dbo.fnBla(4)

And look inside the table

SELECT * FROM LogMeNow

What if you were to run this?

SELECT dbo.fnBla(4),* FROM sys.sysobjects

See the problem? The function will be called for every row, if you have a big table this can be problematic!!!!!!!!

I tested this on SQL 2000 and on SQL 2005(including a named instance). So there you have it, this is one way. does it smell kludgy and do I feel somewhat dirty now? yes it does indeed :-(

SQL Teaser: @@ROWCOUNT

Without running this what do you think will be printed?


SET ROWCOUNT 0
DECLARE @ int
SET @ =6
IF @@ROWCOUNT = 1
PRINT 'yes'
ELSE
PRINT 'no'
PRINT @@rowcount

Should SQLServer Have The CREATE [OR REPLACE] PROCEDURE Syntax?

I was asked by a developer at work the other day why SQL Server does not have the create or replace syntax. I started thinking and there were some advantages and one big disadvantage

First the advantages

Advantage
When scripting out a database you don’t have to generate if exists.....drop statements

When modifying an object from a file in source control you don’t have to change back and forth between CREATE and ALTER. This is really annoying sometimes; usually you create a proc or script out a proc and store it in Subversion/SourceSafe. Now you take that file, make some changes to the proc and run it. Of course it will tell you that the proc already exists, in general you don’t want to drop the proc and then execute the CREATE proc statement because then you have to worry about the permissions.(not everyone is running as dbo you know)

Disadvantage
I can overwrite a proc without even knowing it. What if we both are working on a proc and somehow we pic the same name I create my proc, you work in a remote location, you create yours and mine is gone.

Of course it is all what you are used to, I am sure the Oracle guys are not overwriting each other’s procs every day either

So what do you think? Would you be in favor of this syntax or not? Can you think of more advantages or disadvantages?

What Would You Like To Ask Erland Sommarskog?

In the Who do you want to see interviewed next?(sqlblog) and Who do you want to see interviewed next?(here) blog post I asked for some names of people who YOU would like to see interviewed. Erland Sommarskog's name was submitted in comments a couple of times. I contacted Erland and am happy to anounce that he has agreed to do this.

The first time I heard of Erland Sommarskog was in the SQL Server programming newsgroups. I also read all the articles on his site. When I answer questions I usually give the link out to these 4 articles
Arrays and Lists in SQL Server
Implementing Error Handling with Stored Procedures
Error Handling in SQL Server – a Background
and of course The curse and blessings of dynamic SQL

I always wondered why he didn't write a SQL book. Hey, now I can ask him that :-)

Before you think of any questions please visit Erland's page first (http://www.sommarskog.se/index.html) and read some of the articles he wrote.

You can submit questions until Monday May 12th and then I will forward the questions to Erland.

What Would You Like To Ask Craig Freedman?

In the Who do you want to see interviewed next?(sqlblog) and Who do you want to see interviewed next?(here) blog post I asked for some names of people who YOU would like to see interviewed. Craig Freedman's name was submitted in comments a couple of times. I contacted Craig and am happy to anounce that he has agreed to do this.

Before you think of any questions please visit Craig's blog first(http://blogs.msdn.com/craigfr/) to get a feel of what kind of questions to ask. It would make sense to keep the questions focused on query processing, query execution, and query plans. I told Craig that if he doesn't like a question that he does not have to answer it.

You can submit questions until Monday May 12th and then I will forward the questions to Craig

Do you depend on sp_depends (no pun intended)

HTML Source EditorWord wrap I answered this question on the MSDN forums: How can I search all my sprocs to see if any use a function?
Several people suggested using sp_depends. You can't really depend on sp_depends because of deferred name resolution. Take a look at this

First create this proc

CREATE PROC SomeTestProc
AS
SELECT dbo.somefuction(1)
GO


now create this function

CREATE FUNCTION somefuction(@id int)
RETURNS int
AS
BEGIN
SELECT @id = 1
RETURN @id
END
Go


now run this


sp_depends 'somefuction'

result: Object does not reference any object, and no objects reference it.



Most people will not create a proc before they have created the function. So when does this behavior rear its ugly head? When you script out all the objects in a database, if the function or any objects referenced by an object are created after the object that references them then sp_depends won't be 100% correct

SQL Server 2005 makes it pretty easy to do it yourself

SELECT

specific_name,*

FROM information_schema.routines

WHERE

object_definition(object_id(specific_name)) LIKE '%somefuction%'

AND

routine_type = 'procedure'

BTW somefuction is not a type, I already had a somefunction but was too lazy to change more than one character

Testing for SQL Server Vulnerabilities

I found this SQL Server Testing (not unit but vulnerability) page and decided I would post a link to it since it has some useful stuff. The link is below

http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Testing_for_SQL_Server

Here is what is covered. Enjoy (or live in fear over the weekend)


1 Brief Summary
2 Short Description of the Issue
3 Black Box testing and example
3.1 SQL Server Peculiarities
3.2 Example 1: Testing for SQL Injection in a GET request.
3.3 Example 2: Testing for SQL Injection in a GET request (2).
3.4 Example 3: Testing in a POST request
3.5 Example 4: Yet another (useful) GET example
3.6 Example 5: custom xp_cmdshell
3.7 Example 6: Referer / User-Agent
3.8 Example 7: SQL Server as a port scanner
3.9 Example 8: Upload of executables
3.10 Obtain information when it is not displayed (Out of band)
3.11 Blind SQL injection attacks
3.11.1 Trial and error
3.11.2 In case more than one error message is displayed
3.11.3 Timing attacks
3.11.4 Checking for version and vulnerabilities
3.12 Example 9: bruteforce of sysadmin password
4 References

Who do you want to see interviewed next?

I have interviewed a bunch of people already, some of them on this blog and some of them on SQLBlog

Below is the list of all the people so far

Louis Davidson
Itzik Ben-Gan
Ken Henderson
Kalen Delaney
Adam Machanic
Interview With Stéphane Faroult About Refactoring SQL Applications
Database Refactoring Interview With Scott W. Ambler
Interview With Joe Celko About The Forthcoming Book Thinking In Sets

Who else should I interview? I have some ideas but I would like you to participate. Here is my thinking, after we have a list of possible people, I will contact them and ask if they will agree to an interview. If they agree I will make a post here and ask you what you would like to ask this person. I usually have a good set of questions but there might be someone out there with some real good/interesting questions.
So post the name of the person you would like to see interviewed and hopefully this person will agree.

It would be nice if you did not pick a person who blogs at SQLBlog but if_you_really_wanted_to then I will not stop you :-0

Please keep it database related, it doesn't have to be specific to SQL Server but it has to be applicable to SQL Server.

SQL Teaser: Some Things Are Not What They Seem

This one is a little sneaky, don’t send me hate mail for it.

What does this return?



SELECT ISNUMERIC('+'),ISNUMERIC('–')

Copy and paste it into QA/SSMS to verify :-0

How to rename a column in a SQL Server table without using the designer

If you have a table and you want to rename a column without using the designer, how can you do that?

First create this table

CREATE TABLE TestColumnChange(id int)
INSERT TestColumnChange VALUES(1)


SELECT * FROM TestColumnChange

As you can see the select statement returns id as the column name. you can use ALTER table ALTER Column to change the dataype of a column but not the name.

Here is what we will do, execute the statement below

EXEC sp_rename 'TestColumnChange.[id]', 'value', 'COLUMN'


Now do the select, you will see that the column name has changed

SELECT * FROM TestColumnChange

That is it, very simple

Interview With Stéphane Faroult About Refactoring SQL Applications

I decided to interview Stéphane Faroult, the author of The Art of SQL because it is one of my favorite SQL books. Stéphane told me he has a new book coming out soon, the name of this book is Refactoring SQL Applications and the majority of this interview is focused on that book.

You can find that interview here: Interview With Stéphane Faroult About Refactoring SQL Applications

Solutions for Common T-SQL Problems Wiki Launched

Volunteer Moderators and Answerers who support the Microsoft MSDN SQL Server Forums have launched a Wiki with Solutions for Common T-SQL Problems. Check it out here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SQLExamples

Use IDENT_CURRENT() to return the last identity value generated in all tables in a SQL Server Database

This is how you return all the tables with their last generated identity values in a SQL Server Database

SELECT IDENT_CURRENT(table_name),*
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_TYPE = 'base table'
AND OBJECTPROPERTY(OBJECT_ID(table_name),'TableHasIdentity')=1

Links Of The Week 20080414

Here are the links for this week

Database

SQL Server 2005 Memory Limits and Related Questions
Microsoft to Increase Use of SQL Server 2005 Best Practices Analyzer (SQLPBA) - So Should You
SqlClient, System.Transactions, SQL Server 2008, and MARS
Visual Linq query builder for Linq to Sql
Converting an EAV design to sparse columns and populating
How It Works: SQL Server Page Allocations
How It Works: File Streams Requires Integrated Security (Windows Authentication)
Troubleshooting xp_cmdshell failures
How It Works: SQL Server Checkpoint (FlushCache) Outstanding I/O Target

Non DB tech

CSS Message Box collection
WCF: Reliable Messaging and Retry Timeouts
Google Starts to Index the Invisible Web
Download YouTube Videos as MP4 Files
New WCF Adapter Code Samples on MSDN!
IUpdatable & ADO.NET Data Services Framework
.NET Rocks! #332 - Ted Neward on the New Language Renaissance

Non tech

Why 24 hours in a Day?
The Publishing Industry Takes Another Hit
What job ads really mean
It's A Dog, Not A Towel (Pics.)
I've got your Highlander right here! [Pic]

Video: SQL Server Data Services Architecture

SQL Server Technical Evangelist Ryan Dunn sits down and talks turkey with two of the creators of SQL Server Data Services (SSDS), Architect Istvan Cseri and Development Manager Nigel Ellis. Istvan and Nigel dig into how to design applications for SSDS and cover a number of the interesting aspects of working with SSDS in terms of features, design, and security.

Watch it here: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=395843#395843

Links Of The Week 20080405

Here are the links for this week

Database
Send Table or View as embedded HTML in an email – stored procedure
How It Works: SQL Server 2005 DBCC Shrink* May Take Longer Than SQL Server 2000
How It Works: Non-Yielding Resource Monitor
Overhead of Row Versioning
TempDB:: Table variable vs local temporary table
sp_helpindex2 to show included columns (2005+) and filtered indexes (2008) which are not shown by sp_helpindex
Yet Another Stored Procedure vs. Ad-hoc Query Discussion?
Geek City: How SQL Server Detects the Correct Versioned Rows
SQLIOSim is "NOT" an I/O Performance Tuning Tool
Forensic Analysis of a SQL Server 2005 Database Server

Non DB tech
Microsoft Live Search Gains Market Share
Unit Testing with Silverlight
Using Spring.NET and NHibernate with ASP.NET MVC
Enterprise Library 4.0 Community Technology Preview
Hanselminutes Podcast 107 - Digital Photography Explained (for Geeks) with Aaron Hockley
How do Extension Methods work and why was a new CLR not required?
Core War: Two Programs Enter, One Program Leaves
How to set an IIS Application or AppPool to use ASP.NET 3.5 rather than 2.0
Let That Be a Lesson To You, Son: Never Upgrade.
Silverlight 2 DIGG Sample Part I
Silverlight 2 DIGG Sample Part II
Silverlight 2 DIGG Sample Part III
Google Developer Podcast: Picasa Web and Google Gears for Mobile
Ted Neward: On Java and .NET, Software Academics versus Practioners, General Purpose Programming Languages
Whirlwind 7: What's New in C# 3 - Lambda Expressions
Google To Launch BigTable As Web Service To Compete With Amazon's SimpleDB

Non tech
SMCB: Charles Manson Pulls a Radiohead
Possibly the best name ever.
Thank God for Torrents (Pic)

Database Refactoring Interview With Scott W. Ambler

Since I am doing scrum and other agile methodologies myself I decided to interview the authority on agile in the database world.

Scott W. Ambler is the Practice Leader Agile Development for IBM Rational

You can find more about Scott here: http://www.ibm.com/software/rational/bios/ambler.html

I did not feel like duplicating the content here so you can read the interview here: Database Refactoring Interview With Scott W. Ambler

SQL Champ - A Quiz to Prove Your SQL Knowledge

In case you are bored CodeProject has a small SQL test (7 questions)

Take the test here: SQL Champ - A Quiz to Prove Your SQL Knowledge

And did you get everything correct?

And yes they wrote Knowlege instead of Knowledge :-)

Not An April Fool’s Joke: SQL Server 2000 Mainstream Support Ends In A Week

April 1st 2008 is the day on which support for SQL Server 2000 ends (and it is also my birthday)


SQL 2000 SP4 - currently supported; support ends on either 12 months after SP5 is released or on 4/8/2008 whichever comes first. Extended support under which you get only break-fix assistance via Premier ends on 4/9/2013. I am not aware of release date for SP5 so far.

SQL 2005 SP2 - currently supported; support ends on either 12 months after SP3 is released or on 4/12/2011 whichever comes first. Extended support under which you get only break-fix assistance via Premier ends on 4/13/2016


More details can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2007/07/12/sql-server-support-lifetimes-customer-actions.aspx

And here:
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=2852

Links Of The Week 20080330

Who needs SQL links when you have this gem?

Check out (grand)ma in the background, she doesn't miss a beat.

How To Use COALESCE And NULLIF To Prevent Updating Columns When A Parameter IS NULL Or A Default Value

A variation of this question popped up twice in the SQL programming newsgroup since yesterday, this means it is time for a blogpost.
Let's say you have a proc like this

CREATE PROC prUpdateTable
@Salesman int = -1
AS

..........

If the user calls the proc like this exec prUpdateTable null then @Salesman will be null, if the user calls the proc like this exec prUpdateTable then the value of @Salesman will be -1. In both of this cases you don't want to change the value of the column. What can you do?
You can use a combination of NULLIF and COALESCE to handle this. Your update statement would look like this

UPDATE table
SET Column = COALESCE(NULLIF(@variable,-1),Column)

Here is some code to demonstrate that

CREATE TABLE #foo (id int,salesman int)
INSERT #foo VALUES(1,1)
INSERT #foo VALUES(2,1)
INSERT #foo VALUES(3,1)
INSERT #foo VALUES(4,1)



SELECT * FROM #foo
-------------
1 1
2 1
3 1
4 1

DECLARE @salesman int
SELECT @salesman = 5

--Column value will change to 5
UPDATE #foo
SET salesman = COALESCE(NULLIF(@salesman,-1),salesman)
WHERE ID =1

--Column value won't change
SELECT @salesman = -1
UPDATE #foo
SET salesman = COALESCE(NULLIF(@salesman,-1),salesman)
WHERE ID =2

--Column value won't change
SELECT @salesman = NULL
UPDATE #foo
SET salesman = COALESCE(NULLIF(@salesman,-1),salesman)
WHERE ID =3

--Column value will change to 3
SELECT @salesman = 3
UPDATE #foo
SET salesman = COALESCE(NULLIF(@salesman,-1),salesman)
WHERE ID =4

--And here is the output, as you can see when @salesman was -1 or NULL the table did not get updated
SELECT * FROM #foo
-------------
1 5
2 1
3 1
4 3

DROP TABLE #foo

As you can see only the first and the last update statement changed the value of the salesman column
Of course you would never do this if you were to update only one column, you would skip the update instead. If you have to update multiple columns then this is something you can use instead of writing a bunch of dynamic SQL or nested IF statements.

Technet Radio: A Look Inside SQLCAT (SQL Customer Advisory Team)

Channel9 has a podcast with the SQLCAT team.

On this episode of TechNet Radio, We learn more about SQL CAT – the SQL Customer Advisory Team. With Launch of SQL 2008 on the way, the SQL CAT team has been working hard preparing lists of best practices, recommendations, technical whitepapers and technical end-to-end case studies on customer implementations.

Listen to it here: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=392382#392382

Links Of The Week 20080322

Here are the links for this week

Database
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 1 - Intro
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 2 - Conditions
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 3 - ExpressionNode and Policy
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 4 - Introducing ObjectSets
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 5 - TargetSets and TargetSetLevels
Programming Policy-Based Management with SMO - Part 6 - Categories, Subscriptions, Wrapup
How It Works: SQL Server 2005 I/O Affinity and NUMA Don't Always Mix
Database Programming: The String Concatenation XML Trick, Sans Entitization
Database Programming: The String Concatenation XML Trick, Finalized
SQL Server 2008: Interesting Full-Text Dynamic Management Function
Minimal Logging changes in SQL Server 2008 (part-1)
More about sparse columns and column_sets
Which to use: "<>" or "!="?
Hanselminutes #105 - Rocky Lhotka on Data Access Mania, LINQ and CSLA.NET
geekSpeak Recording: Extending SQL Server Integration Services with Reza Madani

Non DB tech
Unit Testing for Silverlight...
IronPython and the DLR march on
The Weekly Source Code 21 - ASP.NET MVC Preview 2 Source Code
Hanselminutes Podcast 104 - Dave Laribee on ALT.NET
The First Rule of Programming: It's Always Your Fault
The Weekly Source Code 20 - A Web Framework for Every Language
It’s common sense, stupid: How Not to Evangelize Unit Testing
Getting LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities to use NOLOCK
Google's Design Guidelines
Microsoft give an awesome response to the guy whose XBox was cleaned
Joe Duffy and Igor Ostrovsky: Parallel LINQ under the hood
FLOSS Weekly 27: Ward Cunningham

Non tech
TheGoogle.com - a Google offering for older adults
Open Letter to Comcast: STAY OUT OF MY COMPUTER!
The Laptop Cat [Pic]
Questions on Bear Stearns buyout - shareholders want answers on how the deal was arranged, and gained government approval and financing, all in a few hours, and seemingly without alternative bidders.

SOT: I found a new 'worst query'

Before you ask, SOT means Slightly Off Topic :-())

Take a look at Hi, I need help on simplyfying this Update query!

I don't even want to count the nested SELECTS, The query is 688 lines long, somehow schadenfreude enters my mind.

Now where does the update come into the picture?

What tastes better, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Oracle 11g?

Find out here: http://www.databasetastechallenge.com/landing/index.html
You can win some cool prizes. the video is very funny

Links Of The Week 20080317

Here are the links for this week

Database
TechNet Radio: SQL 2008 Part 2 of 2: Management, Troubleshooting and Throttling
SQL Server: XQuery/XPath, Retrieval Functions
sp_send_dbmail in a transaction with @query causes unresolvable deadlock
New Features Announced In SQL Server 2008
SQL Down Under show 35 - Roger Doherty - SQL Server 2008 for Database Developers
Applying SQL Server Service Packs and HotFixes
Database Programming: The String Concatenation XML Trick Revisited (Or, Adam Is Right, But We Can Fix It)
Geek City: Nonclustered Index Keys
Sybase iAnywhere Unveils Advantage Database Server 9.0
SQL Server Integration Services and Clustering - confguration gotcha to ensure SSIS works with failover of cluster!

Non DB tech
How the BBC rendered a spinning globe in 1985
I wrote Super Pac-Man: More confessions of an ex-Atari employee
From BFS to ZFS: past, present, and future of file systems
LINQPad.net - So Great! So Great!
.NET Rocks! #324 - Emre Kiciman on AjaxView
Mashups with SyndicationFeed and LINQ
Microsoft Research Offers Behind-the-Scenes Look at Future of Computing
IBM Researchers Develop World’s Tiniest Nanophotonic Switch to route optical data between cores in future computer chips
Getting up to speed with ASP.NET and the 3.5 Extensions
Using Unity and the ASP.NET MVC Preview 2
PowerShell Plus is now official!
List Of .NET Dependency Injection Containers (IOC).
The Weekly Source Code 19 - LINQ and More What, Less How
You Know, There's a Much Easier Way...

Non tech
Man had $12,000 in debts, repaid $15,000 over 8 yrs, still owes $12,200. Credit card industry stopped him from testifying to congressional panel
XKCD on mythbusters...
JP Morgan "buys" Bear Stearns for $2 a share, Fed flips the actual bill
2008-03-11, Jim Cramer: "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they’re more likely to be taken over. Don’t move your money from Bear."
English is our language [PIC]

6th Annual Financial Services Developer Conference

I went to the 6th Annual Financial Services Developer Conference today in New York City. This year’s focus was on High Performance Computing (HPC). I must say that I have enjoyed this conference a lot. It seems that SQL Server is very prevalent on the street. The OLAP capabilities of SQL Server are making Sybase slowly disappear from Wall Street. Financial firms are doing some very interesting stuff; there is a hedge fund which records an earnings call, runs it through some voice stress analysis software and based on the outcome of that will short or long the stock. You should hear the stories of how financial firms handle IT, the innovation is happening in the financial markets. I also saw a couple of very cool WPF applications. Check out the demos from Lab49: http://www.lab49.com/insidethelab/demos
Visit http://www.financialdevelopers.com/ to download The Silverlight 2 Retail Financial Services Demonstrator



Carl Franklin from Dotnetrocks recorded a podcast at the event, this podcast was about concurrency and how to handle multi-core programming. You should definitely check it out when it becomes available on dotnetrocks. If you are interested about PLINQ and concurrent programming with .NET then visit this site: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/concurrency/default.aspx



Tomorrow there are three sessions at the same time that I want to attend
Software Engineering with VSTS
Parallelize you .Net applications with parallel extensions to the .NET framework.
Useful evolution: Programming the New features in SQL Server 2008.

I have my blackcrackberry with me so if you are attending the event tomorrow then send me an email at FirstName.LastName@dowjones.com and maybe we can discuss about this event during lunch.

StrataFrame Or CSLA.NET, Which Framework Would You Use?

If you would have to choose between StrataFrame or CSLA.NET, which one would you pick?
The team I am part of at work is trying to pick a framework for new development and they like these two the best. Are these two something you would pick or do you know a better one?

CSLA.NET: http://www.lhotka.net/cslanet/
StrataFrame: http://www.strataframe.net/

Also keep in mind that while CSLA.NET is free, StrataFrame is not.