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• SQL SERVER – Expanding Views – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198) – Day 4 of 5

  - by pinaldave

  August 2011 we ran a contest where every day we give away one book for an entire month. The contest had extreme success. Lots of people participated and lots of give away. I have received lots of questions if we are doing something similar this month. Absolutely, instead of running a contest a month long we are doing something more interesting. We are giving away USD 198 worth gift every day for this week. We are giving away Joes 2 Pros 5 Volumes (BOOK) SQL 2008 Development Certification Training Kit every day. One copy in India and One in USA. Total 2 of the giveaway (worth USD 198). All the gifts are sponsored from the Koenig Training Solution and Joes 2 Pros. The books are available here Amazon | Flipkart | Indiaplaza How to Win: Read the Question Read the Hints Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India residents only) 2 Winners will be randomly selected announced on August 20th. Question of the Day: Which of the following key word will force the query to use indexes created on views? a) ENCRYPTION b) SCHEMABINDING c) NOEXPAND d) CHECK OPTION Query Hints: BIG HINT POST Usually, the assumption is that Index on the table will use Index on the table and Index on view will be used by view. However, that is the misconception. It does not happen this way. In fact, if you notice the image, you will find the both of them (table and view) use both the index created on the table. The index created on the view is not used. The reason for the same as listed in BOL. The cost of using the indexed view may exceed the cost of getting the data from the base tables, or the query is so simple that a query against the base tables is fast and easy to find. This often happens when the indexed view is defined on small tables. You can use the NOEXPAND hint if you want to force the query processor to use the indexed view. This may require you to rewrite your query if you don’t initially reference the view explicitly. You can get the actual cost of the query with NOEXPAND and compare it to the actual cost of the query plan that doesn’t reference the view. If they are close, this may give you the confidence that the decision of whether or not to use the indexed view doesn’t matter. Additional Hints: I have previously discussed various concepts from SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Volume 4. SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Structured Error Handling SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – SQL Server Error Messages SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Table-Valued Functions SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Table-Valued Store Procedure Parameters SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Easy Introduction to CHECK Options SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Introduction to Views SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – All about SQL Constraints Next Step: Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India) Bonus Winner Leave a comment with your favorite article from the “additional hints” section and you may be eligible for surprise gift. There is no country restriction for this Bonus Contest. Do mention why you liked it any particular blog post and I will announce the winner of the same along with the main contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – SQLServer Quiz 2011 – Do you know your execution plan – Two questions – One Answer

  - by pinaldave

  My friend Jacob Sebastian has SQL Server Quiz 2011 launched. This time when he asked me to come up with quiz question – I wanted to come up with something which is new and make participant to think about it. After carefully thinking I come with question which I really like to solve myself. Here is the details: 1) Using Single table only Once in Single SELECT statement generate execution plan which have JOIN operator. Explain the reason for the same. 2) Using Single table only Once in Single SELECT statement generate execution plan which have parallelism operator. Explain the reason for the same. Bonus: Create a single query which satisfy both of the above statement. To answer this question and win exciting gifts please visit the SQL Server Quiz website. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)   Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – DATEDIFF – Accuracy of Various Dateparts

  - by pinaldave

  I recently received the following question through email and I found it very interesting so I want to share it with you. “Hi Pinal, In SQL statement below the time difference between two given dates is 3 sec, but when checked in terms of Min it says 1 Min (whereas the actual min is 0.05Min) SELECT DATEDIFF(MI,'2011-10-14 02:18:58' , '2011-10-14 02:19:01') AS MIN_DIFF Is this is a BUG in SQL Server ?” Answer is NO. It is not a bug; it is a feature that works like that. Let us understand that in a bit more detail. When you instruct SQL Server to find the time difference in minutes, it just looks at the minute section only and completely ignores hour, second, millisecond, etc. So in terms of difference in minutes, it is indeed 1. The following will also clear how DATEDIFF works: SELECT DATEDIFF(YEAR,'2011-12-31 23:59:59' , '2012-01-01 00:00:00') AS YEAR_DIFF The difference between the above dates is just 1 second, but in terms of year difference it shows 1. If you want to have accuracy in seconds, you need to use a different approach. In the first example, the accurate method is to find the number of seconds first and then divide it by 60 to convert it to minutes. SELECT DATEDIFF(second,'2011-10-14 02:18:58' , '2011-10-14 02:19:01')/60.0 AS MIN_DIFF Even though the concept is very simple it is always a good idea to refresh it. Please share your related experience with me through your comments. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – DVM sys.dm_os_sys_info Column Name Changed in SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  Have you ever faced situation where something does not work and when you try to go and fix it – you like fixing it and started to appreciate the breaking changes. Well, this is exactly I felt yesterday. Before I begin my story of yesterday I want to state it candidly that I do not encourage anybody to use * in the SELECT statement. One of the my DBA friend who always used my performance tuning script yesterday sent me email asking following question - “Every time I want to retrieve OS related information in SQL Server – I used DMV sys.dm_os_sys_info. I just upgraded my SQL Server edition from 2008 R2 to SQL Server 2012 RC0 and it suddenly stopped working. Well, this is not the production server so the issue is not big yet but eventually I need to resolve this error. Any suggestion?” The funny thing was original email was very long but it did not talk about what is the exact error beside the query is not working. I think this is the disadvantage of being too friendly on email sometime. Well, never the less, I quickly looked at the DMV on my SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012 RC0 version. To my surprise I found out that there were few columns which are renamed in SQL Server 2012 RC0. Usually when people see breaking changes they do not like it but when I see these changes I was happy as new names were meaningful and additionally their new conversion is much more practical and useful. Here are the columns previous names - Previous Column Name New Column Name physical_memory_in_bytes physical_memory_kb bpool_commit_target committed_target_kb bpool_visible visible_target_kb virtual_memory_in_bytes virtual_memory_kb bpool_commited committed_kb If you read it carefully you will notice that new columns now display few results in the KB whereas earlier result was in bytes. When I see the results in bytes I always get confused as I could not guess what exactly it will convert to. I like to see results in kb and I am glad that new columns are now displaying the results in the kb. I sent the details of the new columns to my friend and ask him to check the columns used in application. From my comment he quickly realized why he was facing error and fixed it immediately. Overall – all was well at the end and I learned something new. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DMV, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Monday Morning Puzzle – Query Returns Results Sometimes but Not Always

  - by pinaldave

  The amount of email I receive sometime it is impossible for me to answer every email. Nonetheless I try to answer pretty much every email I receive. However, quite often I receive such questions in email that I have no answer to them because either emails are not complete or they are out of my domain expertise. In recent times I received one email which had only one or two lines but indeed attracted my attention to it. The question was bit vague but it indeed made me think. The answer was not straightforward so I had to keep on writing the answer as I remember it. However, after writing the answer I do not feel satisfied. Let me put this question in front of you and see if we all can come up with a comprehensive answer. Question: I am beginner with SQL Server. I have one query, it sometime returns a result and sometime it does not return me the result. Where should I start looking for a solution and what kind of information I should send to you so you can help me with solving. I have no clue, please guide me. Well, if you read the question, it is indeed incomplete and it does not contain much of the information at all. I decided to help him and here is the answer, which I started to compose. Answer: As there are not much information in the original question, I am not confident what will solve your problem. However, here are the few things which you can try to look at and see if that solves your problem. Check parameter which is passed to the query. Is the parameter changing at various executions? Check connection string – is there some kind of logic around it? Do you have a non-deterministic component in your query logic? (In other words – does your result is based on current date time or any other time based function?) Are you facing time out while running your query? Is there any error in error log? What is the business logic in your query? Do you have all the valid permissions to all the objects used in the query? Are permissions changing or query accessing a different object in various executions? (Add your suggestions here) Meanwhile, have you ever faced this situation? If yes, do share your experience in the comment area. I will send a copy of my book SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers to one of the most interesting comment. The winner will be announced by next Monday.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Replace a Column Name in Multiple Stored Procedure all together

  - by pinaldave

  I receive a lot of emails every day. I try to answer each and every email and comments on Facebook and Twitter. I prefer communication on social media as this gives opportunities to others to read the questions and participate along with me. There is always some question which everyone likes to read and remember. Here is one of the questions which I received in email. I believe the same question will be there any many developers who are beginning with SQL Server. I decided to blog about it so everyone can read it and participate. “I am beginner in SQL Server. I have a very interesting situation and need your help. I am beginner to SQL Server and that is why I do not have access to the production server and I work entirely on the development server. The project I am working on is also in the infant stage as well. In product I had to create a multiple tables and every table had few columns. Later on I have written Stored Procedures using those tables. During a code review my manager has requested to change one of the column which I have used in the table. As per him the naming convention was not accurate. Now changing the columname in the table is not a big issue. I figured out that I can do it very quickly either using T-SQL script or SQL Server Management Studio. The real problem is that I have used this column in nearly 50+ stored procedure. This looks like a very mechanical task. I believe I can go and change it in nearly 50+ stored procedure but is there a better solution I can use. Someone suggested that I should just go ahead and find the text in system table and update it there. Is that safe solution? If not, what is your solution. In simple words, How to replace a column name in multiple stored procedure efficiently and quickly? Please help me here with keeping my experience and non-production server in mind.” Well, I found this question very interesting. Honestly I would have preferred if this question was asked on my social media handles (Facebook and Twitter) as I am very active there and quite often before I reach there other experts have already answered this question. Anyway I am now answering the same question on the blog so all of us can participate here and come up with an appropriate answer. Here is my answer - “My Friend, I do not advice to touch system table. Please do not go that route. It can be dangerous and not appropriate. The issue which you faced today is what I used to face in early career as well I still face it often. There are two sets of argument I have observed – there are people who see no value in the name of the object and name objects like obj1, obj2 etc. There are sets of people who carefully chose the name of the object where object name is self-explanatory and almost tells a story. I am not here to take any side in this blog post – so let me go to a quick solution for your problem. Note: Following should not be directly practiced on Production Server. It should be properly tested on development server and once it is validated they should be pushed to your production server with your existing deployment practice. The answer is here assuming you have regular stored procedures and you are working on the Development NON Production Server. Go to Server Note >> Databases >> DatabaseName >> Programmability >> Stored Procedure Now make sure that Object Explorer Details are open (if not open it by clicking F7). You will see the list of all the stored procedures there. Now you will see a list of all the stored procedures on the right side list. Select either all of them or the one which you believe are relevant to your query. Now… Right click on the stored procedures >> SELECT DROP and CREATE to >> Now select New Query Editor Window or Clipboard. Paste the complete script to a new window if you have selected Clipboard option. Now press Control+H which will bring up the Find and Replace Screen. In this screen insert the column to be replaced in the “Find What”box and new column name into “Replace With” box. Now execute the whole script. As we have selected DROP and CREATE to, it will created drop the old procedure and create the new one. Another method would do all the same procedure but instead of DROP and CREATE manually replace the CREATE word with ALTER world. There is a small advantage in doing this is that if due to any reason the error comes up which prevents the new stored procedure to be created you will have your old stored procedure in the system as it is. “ Well, this was my answer to the question which I have received. Do you see any other workaround or solution? Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Stored Procedure, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Introduction to PERCENTILE_DISC() – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical function PERCENTILE_DISC(). The book online gives following definition of this function: Computes a specific percentile for sorted values in an entire rowset or within distinct partitions of a rowset in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Release Candidate 0 (RC 0). For a given percentile value P, PERCENTILE_DISC sorts the values of the expression in the ORDER BY clause and returns the value with the smallest CUME_DIST value (with respect to the same sort specification) that is greater than or equal to P. If you are clear with understanding of the function – no need to read further. If you got lost here is the same in simple words – find value of the column which is equal or more than CUME_DIST. Before you continue reading this blog I strongly suggest you read about CUME_DIST function over here Introduction to CUME_DIST – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, CUME_DIST() OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY ProductID ) AS CDist, PERCENTILE_DISC(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS PercentileDisc FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: You can see that I have used PERCENTILE_DISC(0.5) in query, which is similar to finding median but not exactly. PERCENTILE_DISC() function takes a percentile as a passing parameters. It returns the value as answer which value is equal or great to the percentile value which is passed into the example. For example in above example we are passing 0.5 into the PERCENTILE_DISC() function. It will go through the resultset and identify which rows has values which are equal to or great than 0.5. In first example it found two rows which are equal to 0.5 and the value of ProductID of that row is the answer of PERCENTILE_DISC(). In some third windowed resultset there is only single row with the CUME_DIST() value as 1 and that is for sure higher than 0.5 making it as a answer. To make sure that we are clear with this example properly. Here is one more example where I am passing 0.6 as a percentile. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT SalesOrderID, OrderQty, ProductID, CUME_DIST() OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY ProductID ) AS CDist, PERCENTILE_DISC(0.6) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY ProductID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS PercentileDisc FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY SalesOrderID DESC GO The above query will give us the following result: The result of the PERCENTILE_DISC(0.6) is ProductID of which CUME_DIST() is more than 0.6. This means for SalesOrderID 43670 has row with CUME_DIST() 0.75 is the qualified row, resulting answer 773 for ProductID. I hope this explanation makes it further clear. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics – SQL in Sixty Seconds #006 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  A DBA’s role is critical, because a production environment has to run 24×7, hence maintenance, trouble shooting, and quick resolutions are the need of the hour.  The first baby step into any performance tuning exercise in SQL Server involves creating, analyzing, and maintaining indexes. Though we have learnt indexing concepts from our college days, indexing implementation inside SQL Server can vary.  Understanding this behavior and designing our applications appropriately will make sure the application is performed to its highest potential. Vinod Kumar and myself we often thought about this and realized that practical understanding of the indexes is very important. One can not master every single aspects of the index. However there are some minimum expertise one should gain if performance is one of the concern. More on Indexes: SQL Index SQL Performance I encourage you to submit your ideas for SQL in Sixty Seconds. We will try to accommodate as many as we can. Here is the interview of Vinod Kumar by myself. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Video

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• SQL SERVER – Solution – Generating Zero Without using Any Numbers in T-SQL

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server MVP and my friend My friend Madhivanan has asked very interesting question on his blog regarding How to Generate Zero without using Any Numbers in T-SQL. He has demonstrated various methods how one can generate Zero. When I posted note regarding how one he has generated Zero without using number in my blog post for Free Online Training, blog readers have come up with few very interesting answers. I really found them very interesting and here I am listing them with due credit. Special mention to Andery.ca as the answer Andery provided is the one, I myself come up with after very first look and that is why I had left the same as hint in the original article. anil try this select count(cast(null as int)) or any false condition select count(*) where ‘a’=’b’ Varinder Sandhu It seems every currency symbol that SQL Server supports. Return the same value as zero i tried some as select € select ¥ select £ Andrey.ca select count(*)-count(*) Vinay Kumar Another way for generate zero. select Ascii(‘Y’)-Ascii(‘Y’) OR select LEN(”) I like Madhivanan’s answer. and it was awesome. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Download SQL Server Product Documentation

  - by pinaldave

  Today I just returned from Bangalore User Group Meeting. Attending User Group meeting is indeed fun and really great experience. The best part of the User Group is meeting like minded people and have a great conversation with them. During the meeting I was asked why one has to go online to access SQL Server Product Documentation. I can clearly see there can be many reasons for why one wants the documentation to be available offline. The reasons can be anything but not limited to Company Firewall No Internet (power failure, on road or disaster) Internet Bandwidth Limitatoin Company Proxy Issues … and much more… In this kind of situation one needs documentation which is offline and easily available in local computer. The Microsoft SQL Server 2012 setup installs only the Help Viewer and related components for managing Help settings. Setup does not directly install any documentation. All of the SQL Server documentation is available online. Well, Microsoft has recently released Production Documentation available for offline users as well. You just have to download the executable file and follow all the instructions. Please follow the link below for download of the file. There is detailed instruction on how to download and install the documentation offline. Product Documentation for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Community Service and Public Speaking Engagements

  - by pinaldave

  Today is the last day of the year and I was going over my memories for year 2010. Almost all of them are good and I feel for sure better person in terms of knowledge, nature and overall human being. Looking back at the year, it is very satisfying as I was able to go out in public and help community out at various capacity. Thought, most of the time my contribution was as speaker, many times, I have reached out and helped organized event and worked at any capacity to get the event out. I have taken parts in many TechEds, PASS events, Virtual Tech Days, Various Community Events around the Globe and my contribution is not limited to my country only. Overall – I feel good to be part of this wonderful and supportive community. SQLAuthority News – A Successful Community TechDays at Ahmedabad – December 11, 2010 SQLAuthority News – A Successful Performance Tuning Seminar at Pune – Dec 4-5, 2010 SQL SERVER – A Successful Performance Tuning Seminar – Hyderabad – Nov 27-28, 2010 – Next Pune SQLAuthority News – SQLPASS Nov 8-11, 2010-Seattle – An Alternative Look at Experience SQLAuthority News – Statistics and Best Practices – Virtual Tech Days – Nov 22, 2010 SQLAuthority News – SQL Server Performance Optimizations Seminar – Grand Success – Colombo, Sri Lanka – Oct 4 – 5, 2010 SQL SERVER – Visiting Alma Mater – Delivering Session on Database Performance and Career – Nirma Institute of Technology SQLAuthority News – Feedback Received for Virtual Tech Days Sessions on Spatial Database SQLAuthority News – Community Tech Days, Ahmedabad – July 24, 2010 SQLAuthority News – SQL Data Camp, Chennai, July 17, 2010 – A Huge Success SQLAuthority News – 2 Sessions at TechInsight 2010 – June 29 – July 1, 2010 SQLAuthority News – Author Visit – SQL Server 2008 R2 Launch SQLAuthority News – Professional Development and Community SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Opportunity of A Lifetime SQLAuthority News – Speaking Sessions at TechEd India – 3 Sessions – 1 Panel Discussion SQLAuthority News – Meeting with Allen Bailochan Tuladhar – An Unlimited Experience SQLAuthority News – Author Visit Review – TechMela Nepal – March 29-30, 2010 SQLAuthority News – Excellent Event – TechEd Sri Lanka – Feb 8, 2010 SQLAuthority News – Hyderabad Techies February Fever Feb 11, 2010 – Indexing for Performance SQLAuthority News – MUGH – Microsoft User Group Hyderabad – Feb 2, 2010 Session Review SQLAuthority News – Ahmedabad Community Tech Days – Jan 30, 2010 – Huge Success For earlier year’s contribution you can check my webpage over here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Released (SP1)

  - by pinaldave

  Last week, I was attending SQLPASS 2012 and I had great fun attending the event. During the event long awaited SQL Serer 2012 Service Pack 1 was released. I am pretty excited with SP1 as new service packs are cumulative updates and upgrade all editions and service levels of SQL Server 2012 to SP1. This service pack contains SQL Server 2012 Cumulative Update 1 (CU1) and Cumulative Update 2 (CU2). The latest SP1 has many new and enhanced features. Here are a few for example: Cross-Cluster Migration of AlwaysOn Availability Groups for OS Upgrade Selective XML Index DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS works with SELECT permission New function returns statistics properties – sys.dm_db_stats_properties SSMS Complete in Express SlipStream Full Installation Business Intelligence highlights with Office and SharePoint Server 2013 Management Object Support Added for Resource Governor DDL Please note that the size of the service pack is near 1 GB. Here is the link to SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1. SQL Server Express is the free and feature rich edition of the SQL Server. It is used with lightweight website and desktop applications. Here is the link to SQL Server 2012 EXPRESS Service Pack 1. Here is the question for you – how long have you been using SQL Server 2012? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Service Pack

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• SQL SERVER – Right Aligning Numerics in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server Management Studio is my most favorite tool and the comfort it provides to user is sometime very amazing. Recently I was retrieving numeric data in SSMS and I found it is very difficult to read them as they were all right aligned. Please pay attention to following image, you will notice that it is not easier to read the digits as we are used to read the numbers which are right aligned. I immediately thought before I go for any other tricks I should check the query properties. I right clicked on query properties and I found following option. I checked option Right align numeric values and it just worked fine. Do you have any other similar tricks which do you practice often. I prefer to also include column headers in the result set as it gives me proper perspective of which column I have selected. Sometime little tips like this helps a lot in productivity, I encourage you to share your tips. I will publish it with due credit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – SSMS Automatically Generates TOP (100) PERCENT in Query Designer

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier this week, I was surfing various SQL forums to see what kind of help developer need in the SQL Server world. One of the question indeed caught my attention. I am here regenerating complete question as well scenario to illustrate the point in a precise manner. Additionally, I have added added second part of the question to give completeness. Question: I am trying to create a view in Query Designer (not in the New Query Window). Every time I am trying to create a view it always adds  TOP (100) PERCENT automatically on the T-SQL script. No matter what I do, it always automatically adds the TOP (100) PERCENT to the script. I have attempted to copy paste from notepad, build a query and a few other things – there is no success. I am really not sure what I am doing wrong with Query Designer. Here is my query script: (I use AdventureWorks as a sample database) SELECT Person.Address.AddressID FROM Person.Address INNER JOIN Person.AddressType ON Person.Address.AddressID = Person.AddressType.AddressTypeID ORDER BY Person.Address.AddressID This script automatically replaces by following query: SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT Person.Address.AddressID FROM Person.Address INNER JOIN Person.AddressType ON Person.Address.AddressID = Person.AddressType.AddressTypeID ORDER BY Person.Address.AddressID However, when I try to do the same from New Query Window it works totally fine. However, when I attempt to create a view of the same query it gives following error. Msg 1033, Level 15, State 1, Procedure myView, Line 6 The ORDER BY clause is invalid in views, inline functions, derived tables, subqueries, and common table expressions, unless TOP, OFFSET or FOR XML is also specified. It is pretty clear to me now that the script which I have written seems to need TOP (100) PERCENT, so Query . Why do I need it? Is there any work around to this issue. I particularly find this question pretty interesting as it really touches the fundamentals of the T-SQL query writing. Please note that the query which is automatically changed is not in New Query Editor but opened from SSMS using following way. Database >> Views >> Right Click >> New View (see the image below) Answer: The answer to the above question can be very long but I will keep it simple and to the point. There are three things to discuss in above script 1) Reason for Error 2) Reason for Auto generates TOP (100) PERCENT and 3) Potential solutions to the above error. Let us quickly see them in detail. 1) Reason for Error The reason for error is already given in the error. ORDER BY is invalid in the views and a few other objects. One has to use TOP or other keywords along with it. The way semantics of the query works where optimizer only follows(honors) the ORDER BY in the same scope or the same SELECT/UPDATE/DELETE statement. There is a possibility that one can order after the scope of the view again the efforts spend to order view will be wasted. The final resultset of the query always follows the final ORDER BY or outer query’s order and due to the same reason optimizer follows the final order of the query and not of the views (as view will be used in another query for further processing e.g. in SELECT statement). Due to same reason ORDER BY is now allowed in the view. For further accuracy and clear guidance I suggest you read this blog post by Query Optimizer Team. They have explained it very clear manner the same subject. 2) Reason for Auto Generated TOP (100) PERCENT One of the most popular workaround to above error is to use TOP (100) PERCENT in the view. Now TOP (100) PERCENT allows user to use ORDER BY in the query and allows user to overcome above error which we discussed. This gives the impression to the user that they have resolved the error and successfully able to use ORDER BY in the View. Well, this is incorrect as well. The way this works is when TOP (100) PERCENT is used the result is not guaranteed as well it is ignored in our the query where the view is used. Here is the blog post on this subject: Interesting Observation – TOP 100 PERCENT and ORDER BY. Now when you create a new view in the SSMS and build a query with ORDER BY to avoid the error automatically it adds the TOP 100 PERCENT. Here is the connect item for the same issue. I am sure there will be more connect items as well but I could not find them. 3) Potential Solutions If you are reading this post from the beginning in that case, it is clear by now that ORDER BY should not be used in the View as it does not serve any purpose unless there is a specific need of it. If you are going to use TOP 100 PERCENT with ORDER BY there is absolutely no need of using ORDER BY rather avoid using it all together. Here is another blog post of mine which describes the same subject ORDER BY Does Not Work – Limitation of the Views Part 1. It is valid to use ORDER BY in a view if there is a clear business need of using TOP with any other percentage lower than 100 (for example TOP 10 PERCENT or TOP 50 PERCENT etc). In most of the cases ORDER BY is not needed in the view and it should be used in the most outer query for present result in desired order. User can remove TOP 100 PERCENT and ORDER BY from the view before using the view in any query or procedure. In the most outer query there should be ORDER BY as per the business need. I think this sums up the concept in a few words. This is a very long topic and not easy to illustrate in one single blog post. I welcome your comments and suggestions. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL View, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Copy Column Headers from Resultset – SQL in Sixty Seconds #026 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server Management Studio returns results in Grid View, Text View and to the file. When we copy results from Grid View to Excel there is a common complaint that the column  header displayed in resultset is not copied to the Excel. I often spend time in performance tuning databases and I run many DMV’s in SSMS to get a quick view of the server. In my case it is almost certain that I need all the time column headers when I copy my data to excel or any other place. SQL Server Management Studio have two different ways to do this. Method 1: Ad-hoc When result is rendered you can right click on the resultset and click on Copy Header. This will copy the headers along with the resultset. Additionally, you can use the shortcut key CTRL+SHIFT+C for coping column headers along with the resultset. Method 2: Option Setting at SSMS level This is SSMS level settings and I kept this option always selected as I often need the column headers when I select the resultset. Go Tools >> Options >> Query Results >> SQL Server >> Results to Grid >> Check the Box “Include column header when copying or saving the results.” Both of the methods are discussed in following SQL in Sixty Seconds Video. Here is the code used in the video. Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: Copy Column Headers in Query Analyzers in Result Set Getting Columns Headers without Result Data – SET FMTONLY ON If we like your idea we promise to share with you educational material. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• SQL SERVER – SSMS 2012 Reset Keyboard Shortcuts to Default

  - by pinaldave

  As a technologist, I love my laptop very much and I do not lend it to anyone as I am usually worried that my settings would be messed up when I get it back from its borrower. Honestly, I love how I have set up my laptop and I enjoy the settings and programs I have placed on my computer. If someone changes things there – it will surely be annoying for me. Recently at one of the conferences I was attending in, a small accident happened – one of the speaker’s hard drives failed. The owner immediately panicked due to this and had no clue what to do. I suggested that he may not be able to show the demos but can still show a few things with the product. He accepted my suggestion and finished the presentation. Good thing everybody looked satisfied. Little did I know that a small accident was waiting for me later that day. When I opened my SQL Server Denali, all my shortcuts were totally out of order. When I hit F5, instead of executing query, it was opening up some debugging screen for me. I was very much annoyed so I decided to surf the Internet for me to know how I could reset it to SQL Server 2012 default shortcut. There were so many different advices which further confused me. After reading 4-5 different methods, I used the following method to reset my SQL Server 2012 keyboard shortcuts: Go to SSMS > Tools >> Import and Export Settings… As I wanted to reset all the settings I selected the “Reset all settings” option, but you can select other options as per your need. I suggest you save your current Settings; however, in my case, I did not like the current option so I just decided to overwrite my settings. Here I have two options –  I can either set my shortcut to SQL Server 2012 settings or Visual Studio 2010. I went ahead with the SQL Server 2012 option. Success! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Sharing your ETL Resources Across Applications with Ease

  - by pinaldave

  Frequently an organization will find that the same resources are used in multiple ETL applications, for example, the same database, general purpose processing logic, or file system locations.  Creating an easy way to reuse these resources across multiple applications would increase efficiency and reduce errors.  Moreover, not every ETL developer has the same skill set, and it is likely that one developer will be more adept at writing code while another is more comfortable configuring database connections.  Real productivity gains will come when these developers are able to work independently while still making their work available to others assigned to the same project.  These are the benefits of a centralized version control system. Of course, most version control systems could be used to store and serve files, but the real need is to store and serve entire ETL applications so that each developer’s ongoing work can immediately benefit from another developer’s completed work.  In other words, the version control system needs to be tightly integrated with the tools used to develop the ETL application. The following screen shot shows such a tool. Desktop ETL tool that tightly integrates with a central version control system Developers can checkout or commit entire projects or just a single artifact.  Each artifact may be managed independently so if you need to go back to an earlier version of one artifact, changes you may have made to other artifacts are not lost.  By being tightly integrated into the graphical environment used to create and edit the project artifacts, it is extremely easy and straight-forward to move your files to and from the version control system and there is no dependency on another vendor’s version control system.  The built in version control system is optimized for managing the artifacts of ETL applications. It is equally important that the version control system supports all of the actions one typically performs such as rollbacks, locking and unlocking of files, and the ability to resolve conflicts.  Note that this particular ETL tool also has the capability to switch back and forth between multiple version control systems. It also needs to be easy to determine the status of an artifact.  Not just that it has been committed or modified, but when and by whom.  Generally you must query the version control system for this information, but having it displayed within the development environment is more desirable. Who’s ETL tool works in this fashion?  Last month I mentioned the data integration solution offered by expressor software.  The version control features I described in this post are all available in their just released expressor 3.1 Standard Edition through the integration of their expressor Studio development environment with a centralized metadata repository and version control system. You can download their Studio application, which is free, or evaluate the full Standard Edition on your own hardware.  It may be worth your time. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Table Variables and Transactions – SQL in Sixty Seconds #007 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  Today’s SQL in Sixty Seconds video is inspired from my presentation at TechEd India 2012 on Misconception and Resolution. Quite often I have seen people getting confused with certain behavior of the T-SQL. They expect SQL to behave certain way and SQL Server behave differently. This kind of issue often creates confusion and frustration. Sometime I have seen them also confusing it with bug and submitting the bug, where reality is totally different. Similar concept which are going to see today. I have seen quite commonly developer assuming that table various will be rolled back when transaction is rolled back. This sixty seconds video describes that table various are not rolled back when transactions are rolled back. More on Errors: Difference Temp Table and Table Variable – Effect of Transaction Effect of TRANSACTION on Local Variable – After ROLLBACK and After COMMIT Debate – Table Variables vs Temporary Tables – Quiz – Puzzle – 13 of 31 I encourage you to submit your ideas for SQL in Sixty Seconds. We will try to accommodate as many as we can. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Video

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• SQL SERVER – Detecting guest User Permissions – guest User Access Status

  - by pinaldave

  Earlier I wrote the blog post SQL SERVER – Disable Guest Account – Serious Security Issue, and I got many comments asking questions related to the guest user. Here are the comments of Manoj: 1) How do we know if the uest user is enabled or disabled? 2) What is the default for guest user in SQL Server? Default settings for guest user When SQL Server is installed by default, the guest user is disabled for security reasons. If the guest user is not properly configured, it can create a major security issue. You can read more about this here. Identify guest user status There are multiple ways to identify guest user status: Using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) You can expand the database node >> Security >> Users. If you see the RED arrow pointing downward, it means that the guest user is disabled. Using sys.sysusers Here is a simple script. If you notice column dbaccess as 1, it means that the guest user is enabled and has access to the database. SELECT name, hasdbaccess FROM sys.sysusers WHERE name = 'guest' Using sys.database_principals and sys.server_permissions This script is valid in SQL Server 2005 and a later version. This is my default method recently. SELECT name, permission_name, state_desc FROM sys.database_principals dp INNER JOIN sys.server_permissions sp ON dp.principal_id = sp.grantee_principal_id WHERE name = 'guest' AND permission_name = 'CONNECT' Using sp_helprotect Just run the following stored procedure which will give you all the permissions associated with the user. sp_helprotect @username = 'guest' Disable Guest Account REVOKE CONNECT FROM guest Additionally, the guest account cannot be disabled in master and tempdb; it is always enabled. There is a special need for this. Let me ask a question back at you: In which scenario do you think this will be useful to keep the guest, and what will the additional configuration go along with the scenario? Note: Special mention to Imran Mohammed for being always there when users need help. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Security, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Download Whitepaper – SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services Operations Guide

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server Analysis Service (SSAS) has been always interesting subject for research. Analysis Services cubes are a very powerful tool in the hands of the business intelligence (BI) developer. They provide an easy way to expose even large data models directly to business users. Microsoft has published very informative white paper on Analysis Services Operations Guide. This white paper is authored by Thomas Kejser, John Sirmon, and Denny Lee. In this guide you will find information on how to test and run Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services in SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008 R2 in a production environment. The focus of this guide is how you can test, monitor, diagnose, and remove production issues on even the largest scaled cubes. This paper also provides guidance on how to configure the server for best possible performance. It is the goal of this guide to make your operations processes as painless as possible, and to have you run with the best possible performance without any additional development effort to your deployed cubes. In this guide, you will learn how to get the best out of your existing data model by making changes transparent to the data model and by making configuration changes that improve the user experience of the cube. Download SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services Operations Guide Note: Abstract taken white paper. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL White Papers, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – A Funny Cartoon on Index

  - by pinaldave

  Performance Tuning has been my favorite subject and I have done it for many years now. Today I will list one of the most common conversation about Index I have heard in my life. Every single time, I am at consultation for performance tuning I hear following conversation among various team members. I want to ask you, does this kind of conversation happens in your organization? Any way, If you think Index solves all of your performance problem I think it is not true. There are many other reason one has to consider along with Indexes. For example I consider following various topic one need to understand for performance tuning. ?Logical Query Processing ?Efficient Join Techniques ?Query Tuning Considerations ?Avoiding Common Performance Tuning Issues Statistics and Best Practices ?TempDB Tuning ?Hardware Planning ?Understanding Query Processor ?Using SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Updated Feature Sets ?CPU, Memory, I/O Bottleneck Index Tuning (of course) ?Many more… Well, I have written this blog thinking I will keep this blog post a bit easy and not load up. I will in future discuss about other performance tuning concepts. Let me know what do you think about the cartoon I made. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Humor, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – Introduction to FIRST _VALUE and LAST_VALUE – Analytic Functions Introduced in SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  SQL Server 2012 introduces new analytical functions FIRST_VALUE() and LAST_VALUE(). This function returns first and last value from the list. It will be very difficult to explain this in words so I’d like to attempt to explain its function through a brief example. Instead of creating a new table, I will be using the AdventureWorks sample database as most developers use that for experiment purposes. Now let’s have fun following query: USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO The above query will give us the following result: What’s the most interesting thing here is that as we go from row 1 to row 10, the value of the FIRST_VALUE() remains the same but the value of the LAST_VALUE is increasing. The reason behind this is that as we progress in every line – considering that line and all the other lines before it, the last value will be of the row where we are currently looking at. To fully understand this statement, see the following figure: This may be useful in some cases; but not always. However, when we use the same thing with PARTITION BY, the same query starts showing the result which can be easily used in analytical algorithms and needs. Let us have fun through the following query: Let us fun following query. USE AdventureWorks GO SELECT s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty, FIRST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) FstValue, LAST_VALUE(SalesOrderDetailID) OVER (PARTITION BY SalesOrderID ORDER BY SalesOrderDetailID) LstValue FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail s WHERE SalesOrderID IN (43670, 43669, 43667, 43663) ORDER BY s.SalesOrderID,s.SalesOrderDetailID,s.OrderQty GO The above query will give us the following result: Let us understand how PARTITION BY windows the resultset. I have used PARTITION BY SalesOrderID in my query. This will create small windows of the resultset from the original resultset and will follow the logic or FIRST_VALUE and LAST_VALUE in this resultset. Well, this is just an introduction to these functions. In the future blog posts we will go deeper to discuss the usage of these two functions. By the way, these functions can be applied over VARCHAR fields as well and are not limited to the numeric field only. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – SmallDateTime and Precision – A Continuous Confusion

  - by pinaldave

  Some kinds of confusion never go away. Here is one of the ancient confusing things in SQL. The precision of the SmallDateTime is one concept that confuses a lot of people, proven by the many messages I receive everyday relating to this subject. Let me start with the question: What is the precision of the SMALLDATETIME datatypes? What is your answer? Write it down on your notepad. Now if you do not want to continue reading the blog post, head to my previous blog post over here: SQL SERVER – Precision of SMALLDATETIME. A Social Media Question Since the increase of social media conversations, I noticed that the amount of the comments I receive on this blog is a bit staggering. I receive lots of questions on facebook, twitter or Google+. One of the very interesting questions yesterday was asked on Facebook by Raghavendra. I am re-organizing his script and asking all of the questions he has asked me. Let us see if we could help him with his question: CREATE TABLE #temp (name VARCHAR(100),registered smalldatetime) GO DECLARE @test smalldatetime SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO SELECT * FROM #temp ORDER BY registered DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO Now when the above script is ran, we will get the following result: Well, the expectation of the query was to have the following result. The row which was inserted last was expected to return as first row in result set as the ORDER BY descending. Side note: Because the requirement is to get the latest data, we can’t use any  column other than smalldatetime column in order by. If we use name column in the order by, we will get an incorrect result as it can be any name. My Initial Reaction My initial reaction was as follows: 1) DataType DateTime2: If file precision of the column is expected from the column which store date and time, it should not be smalldatetime. The precision of the column smalldatetime is One Minute (Read Here) for finer precision use DateTime or DateTime2 data type. Here is the code which includes above suggestion: CREATE TABLE #temp (name VARCHAR(100), registered datetime2) GO DECLARE @test datetime2 SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO SELECT * FROM #temp ORDER BY registered DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO 2) Tie Breaker Identity: There are always possibilities that two rows were inserted at the same time. In that case, you may need a tie breaker. If you have an increasing identity column, you can use that as a tie breaker as well. CREATE TABLE #temp (ID INT IDENTITY(1,1), name VARCHAR(100),registered datetime2) GO DECLARE @test datetime2 SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO SELECT * FROM #temp ORDER BY ID DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO Those two were the quick suggestions I provided. It is not necessary that you should use both advices. It is possible that one can use only DATETIME datatype or Identity column can have datatype of BIGINT or have another tie breaker. An Alternate NO Solution In the facebook thread this was also discussed as one of the solutions: CREATE TABLE #temp (name VARCHAR(100),registered smalldatetime) GO DECLARE @test smalldatetime SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO SELECT name, registered, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number" FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO However, I believe it is not the solution and can be further misleading if used in a production server. Here is the example of why it is not a good solution: CREATE TABLE #temp (name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,registered smalldatetime) GO DECLARE @test smalldatetime SET @test=GETDATE() INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value1',@test) INSERT INTO #temp VALUES ('Value2',@test) GO -- Before Index SELECT name, registered, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number" FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC GO -- Create Index ALTER TABLE #temp ADD CONSTRAINT [PK_#temp] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (name DESC) GO -- After Index SELECT name, registered, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY registered DESC) AS "Row Number" FROM #temp ORDER BY 3 DESC GO DROP TABLE #temp GO Now let us examine the resultset. You will notice that an index which is created on the base table which is (indeed) schema change the table but can affect the resultset. As you can see, an index can change the resultset, so this method is not yet perfect to get the latest inserted resultset. No Schema Change Requirement After giving these two suggestions, I was waiting for the feedback of the asker. However, the requirement of the asker was there can’t be any schema change because the application was used by many other applications. I validated again, and of course, the requirement is no schema change at all. No addition of the column of change of datatypes of any other columns. There is no further help as well. This is indeed an interesting question. I personally can’t think of any solution which I could provide him given the requirement of no schema change. Can you think of any other solution to this? Need of Database Designer This question once again brings up another ancient question:  “Do we need a database designer?” I often come across databases which are facing major performance problems or have redundant data. Normalization is often ignored when a database is built fast under a very tight deadline. Often I come across a database which has table with unnecessary columns and performance problems. While working as Developer Lead in my earlier jobs, I have seen developers adding columns to tables without anybody’s consent and retrieving them as SELECT *.  There is a lot to discuss on this subject in detail, but for now, let’s discuss the question first. Do you have any suggestions for the above question? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: CodeProject, Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL DateTime, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Amazon Gift Card Raffle for Beta Tester Feedback for NuoDB

  - by pinaldave

  As regular readers know I’ve been spending some time working with the NuoDB beta software. They contacted me last week and asked if I would give you a chance to try their new web-based console for their scalable, SQL-compliant database. They have just put out their final beta release, Beta 9.  It contains a preview of a new web-based “NuoConsole” that will replace and extend the functionality of their current desktop version.  I haven’t spent any time with the new console yet but a really quick look tells me it should make it easier to do deeper monitoring than the older one. It also looks like they have added query-level reporting through the console. I will try to play with it soon. NuoDB is doing a last, big push to get some more feedback from developers before they release their 1.0 product sometime in the next several weeks. Since the console is new, they are especially interested in some quick feedback on it before general availability. For SQLAuthority readers only, NuoDB will raffle off three $50 Amazon gift cards in exchange for your feedback on the NuoConsole preview. Here’s how to Enter Download NuoDBeta 9 here You must build a domain before you can start the console. Launch the Web Console. Windows Code: start java -jar jarnuodbwebconsole.jar Mac, Linux, Solaris, Unix Code: java -jar jar/nuodbwebconsole.jar Access the Web Console: Code: http://localhost:8080 When you have tried it out, go to a short (8 question) survey to enter the raffle Click here for the survey You must complete the survey before midnight EDT on October 17, 2012. Here’s what else they are saying about this last beta before general availability: Beta 9 now supports the Zend PHP framework so that PHP developers can directly integrate web applications with NuoDB. Multi-threaded HDFS support – NuoDB Storage Managers can now be configured to persist data to the high performance Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS). Beta 9 optimizes for multi-thread I/O streams at maximum performance. This enhancement allows users to make Hadoop their core storage with no extra effort which is a pretty cool idea. Improved Performance –On a single transaction node, Beta 9 offers performance comparable with MySQL and MariaDB. As additional nodes are added, NuoDB performance improves significantly at near linear scale. Query & Explain Plan Logging – Beta 9 introduces SQL explain plans for your queries. Qualify queries with the word “EXPLAIN” and NuoDB will respond with the details of the execution plan allowing performance optimization to SQL. Through the NuoConsole, you can now kill hung or long running queries. Java App Server Support – Beta 9 now supports leading Web JEE app servers including JBoss, Tomcat, and ColdFusion. They’ve also reported: Improved PHP/PDO drivers Support for Drupal Faster Ruby on Rails driver The Hibernate Dialect supports version 4.1 And good news for my readers: numerous SQL enhancements They will share the results of the web console feedback with me.  I’ll let you know how it goes. Also the winner of their last contest was Jaime Martínez Lafargue!  Do leave a comment here once you complete the survey.  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: SQL Authority Tagged: NuoDB

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• SQL SERVER – Three Puzzling Questions – Need Your Answer

  - by pinaldave

  Last week I had asked three questions on my blog. I got very good response to the questions. I am planning to write summary post for each of three questions next week. Before I write summary post and give credit to all the valid answers. I was wondering if I can bring to notice of all of you this week. Why SELECT * throws an error but SELECT COUNT(*) does not This is indeed very interesting question as not quite many realize that this kind of behavior SQL Server demonstrates out of the box. Once you run both the code and read the explanation it totally makes sense why SQL Server is behaving how it is behaving. Also there is connect item is associated with it. Also read the very first comment by Rob Farley it also shares very interesting detail. Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once This puzzle has multiple right answer. I am glad to see many of the correct answer as a comment to this blog post. Statistics are very important and it really helps SQL Server Engine to come up with optimal execution plan. DBA quite often ignore statistics thinking it does not need to be updated, as they are automatically maintained if proper database setting is configured (auto update and auto create). Well, in this question, we have scenario even though auto create and auto update statistics are ON, statistics is not updated. There are multiple solutions but what will be your solution in this case? When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure This question is rather open ended question – there is no right or wrong answer. Everybody developer has always used functions and stored procedures. Here is the chance to justify when to use Stored Procedure and when to use Functions. I want to acknowledge that they can be used interchangeably but there are few reasons when one should not do that. There are few reasons when one is better than other. Let us discuss this here. Your opinion matters. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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