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  • SQL SERVER – Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure

    - by pinaldave
    This week has been very interesting week. I have asked few questions to users and have received remarkable participation on the subject. Q1) SQL SERVER – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) Q2) SQL SERVER – Puzzle – Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once Keeping the same spirit up, I am asking the third question over here. Q3) When to use User Defined Function and when to use Stored Procedure in your development? Personally, I believe that they are both different things - they cannot be compared. I can say, it will be like comparing apples and oranges. Each has its own unique use. However, they can be used interchangeably at many times and in real life (i.e., production environment). I have personally seen both of these being used interchangeably many times. This is the precise reason for asking this question. When do you use Function and when do you use Stored Procedure? What are Pros and Cons of each of them when used instead of each other? If you are going to answer that ‘To avoid repeating code, you use Function’ - please think harder! Stored procedure can do the same. In SQL Server Denali, even the stored procedure can return the result just like Function in SELECT statement; so if you are going to answer with ‘Function can be used in SELECT, whereas Stored Procedure cannot be used’ - again think harder! (link). Now, what do you say? I will post the answers of all the three questions with due credit next week. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Function, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Stored Procedure, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Find Largest Supported DML Operation – Question to You

    - by pinaldave
    SQL Server is very big and it is not possible to know everything in SQL Server but we all keep learning. Recently I was going over the best practices of transactions log and I come across following statement. The log size must be at least twice the size of largest supported DML operation (using uncompressed data volumes). First of all I totally agree with this statement. However, here is my question – How do we measure the size of the largest supported DML operation? I welcome all the opinion and suggestions. I will combine the list and will share that with all of you with due credit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, Pinal Dave, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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  • test questiontest question test question test question? [closed]

    - by user365217
    TestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestionTestQuestion

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  • Testing on Device Other Than the Known Brand Question (Local and Imported Phone Question)

    - by David Dimalanta
    I have a question. When testing a device by using Eclipse, it's easy to install and add device software with these specific brands commonly used in game testing like Samsung, Google, T-Mobile, and HTC; according to the Android Developers website. What if I'm using other brands that runs on Android to test the program via Eclipse (i.e. MyPhone, Starmobile), what should I look for to download in order to enable testing phones that those brands are using other than the brands that are known and commonly used: model number or simply brand? Here's some examples of these brands other than the brands we've known that runs on Android: Starmobile Engage 7 (http://www.lazada.com.ph/Starmobile-Engage-7-Android-40-4GB-with-Wi-Fi-Black-Starmobile-Mercury-B201-COMBO-39833.html/) My|Phone A898 Duo (http://www.myphone.com.ph/#!a898-duo/c1yt) Also, take note that I'm a Filipino programmer working at the Philippines to test our local smartphones for the created Android game or app. Hope you can understand me for my help.

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  • PHP Browser Game Question - Pretty General Language Suitability and Approach Question

    - by JimBadger
    I'm developing a browser game, using PHP, but I'm unsure if the way I'm going about doing it is to be encouraged anymore. It's basically one of those MMOs where you level up various buildings and what have you, but, you then commit some abstract fighting entity that the game gives you, to an automated battle with another player (producing a textual, but hopefully amusing and varied combat report). Basically, as soon as two players agree to fight, PHP functions on the "fight.php" page run queries against a huge MySQL database, looking up all sorts of complicated fight moves and outcomes. There are about three hundred thousand combinations of combat stance, attack, move and defensive stances, so obviously this is quite a resource hungry process, and, on the super cheapo hosted server I'm using for development, it rapidly runs out of memory. The PHP script for the fight logic currently has about a thousand lines of code in it, and I'd say it's about half-finished as I try to add a bit of AI into the fight script. Is there a better way to do something this massive than simply having some functions in a PHP file calling the MySQL Database? I taught myself a modicum of PHP a while ago, and most of the stuff I read online (ages ago) about similar games was all PHP-based. but a) am I right to be using PHP at all, and b) am I missing some clever way of doing things that will somehow reduce server resource requirements? I'd consider non PHP alternatives but, if PHP is suitable, I'd rather stick to that, so there's no overhead of learning something new. I think I'd bite that bullet if it's the best option for a better game, though.

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  • SQL SERVER – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*)

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier this weekend I have presented at Bangalore User Group on the subject of SQL Server Tips and Tricks. During the presentation I have asked a question to attendees. It was very interesting to see that I have received various different answer to my question. Here is the same question for you and I would like to see what your answer to this question. Question: SELECT * gives error when executed alone but SELECT COUNT(*) does not. Why? Select * - resulting Error Select count * - NOT resulting Error Please leave your answer as comment over here. If you prefer you can blog post about this on your blog and put a link here. I will publish valid answer with due credit in future blog posts. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL complex Question

    - by santanu
    Hello All, I need to find a function. the scenario is : I have 2 table. 1. news table 2. news_comment table need to find the most commented 20 news. the news_comment table has the relationship with the news table Thank you

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  • regex question: independent position of words

    - by Fuxi
    hi all, is it possible to define a regex pattern which checks eg. for 3 terms independent to their position in the main string? eg. my string is something like "click here to unsubscribe: http://www.url.com" the pattern should also work with "http:// unsubscribe click" thx

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  • Free Fall Question

    - by Makenshi
    ok im gonna try my best to explain my problem i have this program where u can select 5 balls when u select one you can take it with you while you have the mouse button pressed and its within the ball radius. The problem is that i need a way to make the ball go up when the user stop pressing the mouse button like he sent it to float in the air then make it fall down again i have one way to know the time,velocity and thus the acceleration but i dont know how to implement it... right now i have this void Circulo::caida(float velocidad,float tiempo) { if(this->posY >= 580) { this->posY = 580; this->vcaida = 0.0f; } else if(this->posY < 580) { //this->distancia=9.81f * 0.5f*tiempo*tiempo; this->vcaida += velocidad; this->posY += this->vcaida; } } with this like this it just falls and i cant make the effect i tried to explain... thank you i hope someone can help me .< oh yeah im calculating the time like this just in case it helps difX=(x> evento.motion.xrel)? x-evento.motion.xrel : evento.motion.xrel-x; difY=(y> evento.motion.yrel)? y-evento.motion.yrel : evento.motion.yrel-y; and im sending difY as the time variable

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  • jQuery question

    - by Fuxi
    hi all, i'm having the following string <img alt="over 40 world famous brandedWATCHES BRANDs to choose from " src="http://www.fastblings.com/images/logo.jpg"></strong></a><br> i want to define a regex pattern like <img alt="(.+?)" src="http://(.+?).(jpg|gif)"> but as u can see the target strings has a linebreak in the alt attribute - so how can i incorporate this? the rule should be like "anything in the alt-attribute including linebreaks" thx

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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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  • SQLAuthority News – Monthly list of Puzzles and Solutions on SQLAuthority.com

    - by pinaldave
    This month has been very interesting month for SQLAuthority.com we had multiple and various puzzles which everybody participated and lots of interesting conversation which we have shared. Let us start in latest puzzles and continue going down. There are few answers also posted on facebook as well. SQL SERVER – Puzzle Involving NULL – Resolve – Error – Operand data type void type is invalid for sum operator This puzzle involves NULL and throws an error. The challenge is to resolve the error. There are multiple ways to resolve this error. Readers has contributed various methods. Few of them even have supplied the answer why this error is showing up. NULL are very important part of the database and if one of the column has NULL the result can be totally different than the one expected. SQL SERVER – T-SQL Scripts to Find Maximum between Two Numbers I modified script provided by friend to find greatest number between two number. My script has small bug in it. However, lots of readers have suggested better scripts. Madhivanan has written blog post on the subject over here. SQL SERVER – BI Quiz Hint – Performance Tuning Cubes – Hints This quiz is hosted on my friend Jacob‘s site. I have written many hints how one can tune cubes. Now one can take part here and win exciting prizes. SQL SERVER – Solution – Generating Zero Without using Any Numbers in T-SQL Madhivanan has asked very interesting question on his blog about How to Generate Zero without using Any Numbers in T-SQL. He has demonstrated various methods how one can generate Zero. I asked the same question on blog and got many interesting answers which I have shared. SQL SERVER – Solution – Puzzle – Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once I have to accept that this was most difficult puzzle. In this puzzle I have asked even though settings are correct, why statistics of the tables are not getting updated. In this puzzle one is tested with various concepts 1) Indexes, 2) Statistics, 3) database settings etc. There are multiple ways of solving this puzzles. It was interesting as many took interest but only few got it right. SQL SERVER – Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure This is rather straight forward question and not the typical puzzle. The answers from readers are great however, still there is chance of more detailed answers. SQL SERVER – Selecting Domain from Email Address I wrote on selecting domains from email addresses. Madhivanan makes puzzle out of a simple question. He wrote a follow-up post over here. In his post he writes various way how one can find email addresses from list of domains. Well, this is not a puzzle but amazing Guest Post by Feodor Georgiev who has written on subject Job Interviewing the Right Way (and for the Right Reasons). An article which everyone should read. 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 – 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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  • SQLAuthority News – Pinal Dave: Blogger, MVP and now Interviewee by Michael J Swart

    - by pinaldave
    Michael J. Swart is a very unique person. I have often exchanged emails with him and also used a couple of his scripts in my presentations (with his permission). Every time I conduct spatial database presentation, I always start with his script where he has drawn the wonderful image of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. I often think he is more of a creative artist than IT professional. However, if you read his blog posts and articles, they are top notch and each article is as creative as his caricatures. He is wonderful, inspiring, creative and most importantly, very humble. He recently took my interview and asked me some very interesting question. To answer his question, I had to share some of the interesting aspects of my life which I have had never shared in any interview before. He made me share the following interesting facts. Pinal Dave Caricatures Read my Interview Here are a few questions that I have answered at his blog: How I met my wife? Best moments of my life? How to pronounce my last name? Who inspired me? English as a Third Language. I am also thankful to Michael for drawing my caricature. I really liked it and I am very glad that he took time to do so. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Interview Questions & Answers Needs Your Help

    - by pinaldave
    About an year ago, I had posted SQL Server related Interview Questions and Answers. It was very well received in community. I have received many comments, suggestions and emails on this subject. I am planning to upgrade the Interview Questions and Answers and take it to next level. Here, I need your help. Please your comments, suggestions, expectation or potential interview Question (along with answer) here. Your input will be very valuable. As time goes by we all learn and get better. There were few things missing at that time when those interview questions and answers were prepared, now is the time to complete the gap and make this interview questions more useful. If you know all, this Question and Answers are not for you. This are for those who is eager to learn and need help in the area. If you do not want to leave a comment, I suggest to send me email at pinal “at” SQLAuthority.com Following is the reproduction of original consolidation post for quick reference. SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 1 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 2 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 3 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 4 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 5 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 6 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 7 SQL SERVER – 2008 – Interview Questions and Answers – Part 8 Download SQL Server 2008 Interview Questions and Answers Complete List Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – T-SQL Script to Take Database Offline – Take Database Online

    - by pinaldave
    Blog reader Joyesh Mitra recently left a comment to one of my very old posts about SQL SERVER – 2005 Take Off Line or Detach Database, which I have written focusing on taking the database offline. However, I did not include how to bring the offline database to online in that post. The reason I did not write it was that I was thinking it was a very simple script that almost everyone knows. However, it seems to me that there is something I found advanced in this procedure that is not simple for other people. We all have different expertise and we all try to learn new things, so I do not see any reason as to not write about the script to take the database online. -- Create Test DB CREATE DATABASE [myDB] GO -- Take the Database Offline ALTER DATABASE [myDB] SET OFFLINE WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE GO -- Take the Database Online ALTER DATABASE [myDB] SET ONLINE GO -- Clean up DROP DATABASE [myDB] GO Joyesh let me know if this answers your question. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – BI Quiz – Troubleshooting Cube Performance

    - by pinaldave
    My friend Jacob Sebastian runs SQL BI Quiz competition. Where there are 30 different questions on each day of the month. Winners get opportunity to participate in this Quiz, learn something new and win great awards. Working with huge data is very common when it is about Data Warehousing. It is necessary to create Cubes on the data to make it meaningful and consumable. There are cases when retrieving the data from cube takes lots of the time. Let us assume that your cube is returning you data very quickly. Suddenly on one day it is returning the data very slowly. What are the three things will you in order to diagnose this. After diagnose what you will do to resolve performance issue. Participate in my question over here Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Solution – Challenge – Puzzle – Usage of FAST Hint

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier I had posted quick puzzle and I had received wonderful response to the same from Brad Schulz. Today we will go over the solution. The puzzle was posted here: SQL SERVER – Challenge – Puzzle – Usage of FAST Hint The question was in what condition the hint FAST will be useful. In the response to this puzzle blog post here is what SQL Server Expert Brad Schulz has pointed me to his blog post where he explain how FAST hint can be useful. I strongly recommend to read his blog post over here. With the permission of the Brad, I am reproducing following queries here. He has come up with example where FAST hint improves the performance. USE AdventureWorks GO DECLARE @DesiredDateAtMidnight DATETIME = '20010709' DECLARE @NextDateAtMidnight DATETIME = DATEADD(DAY,1,@DesiredDateAtMidnight) -- Query without FAST SELECT OrderID=h.SalesOrderID ,h.OrderDate ,h.TerritoryID ,TerritoryName=t.Name ,c.CardType ,c.CardNumber ,CardExpire=RIGHT(STR(100+ExpMonth),2)+'/'+STR(ExpYear,4) ,h.TotalDue FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader h LEFT JOIN Sales.SalesTerritory t ON h.TerritoryID=t.TerritoryID LEFT JOIN Sales.CreditCard c ON h.CreditCardID=c.CreditCardID WHERE OrderDate>=@DesiredDateAtMidnight AND OrderDate<@NextDateAtMidnight ORDER BY h.SalesOrderID; -- Query with FAST(10) SELECT OrderID=h.SalesOrderID ,h.OrderDate ,h.TerritoryID ,TerritoryName=t.Name ,c.CardType ,c.CardNumber ,CardExpire=RIGHT(STR(100+ExpMonth),2)+'/'+STR(ExpYear,4) ,h.TotalDue FROM Sales.SalesOrderHeader h LEFT JOIN Sales.SalesTerritory t ON h.TerritoryID=t.TerritoryID LEFT JOIN Sales.CreditCard c ON h.CreditCardID=c.CreditCardID WHERE OrderDate>=@DesiredDateAtMidnight AND OrderDate<@NextDateAtMidnight ORDER BY h.SalesOrderID OPTION(FAST 10) Now when you check the execution plan for the same, you will find following visible difference. You will find query with FAST returns results with much lower cost. Thank you Brad for excellent post and teaching us something. I request all of you to read original blog post written by Brad for much more information. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Fastest Way to Restore the Database

    - by pinaldave
    A few days ago, I received following email: “Pinal, We are in an emergency situation. We have a large database of around 80+ GB and its backup is of 50+ GB in size. We need to restore this database ASAP and use it; however, restoring the database takes forever. Do you think a compressed backup would solve our problem? Any other ideas you got?” First of all, the asker has already answered his own question. Yes; I have seen that if you are using a compressed backup, it takes lesser time when you try to restore a database. I have previously blogged about the same subject. Here are the links to those blog posts: SQL SERVER – Data and Page Compressions – Data Storage and IO Improvement SQL SERVER – 2008 – Introduction to Row Compression SQL SERVER – 2008 – Introduction to New Feature of Backup Compression However, if your database is very large that it still takes a few minutes to restore the database even though you use any of the features listed above, then it will really take some time to restore the database. If there is urgency and there is no time you can spare for restoring the database, then you can use the wonderful tool developed by Idera called virtual database. This tool restores a certain database in just a few seconds so it will readily be available for usage. I have in depth written my experience with this tool in the article here SQL SERVER – Retrieve and Explore Database Backup without Restoring Database – Idera virtual database. Let me know your experience in this scenario. Have you ever needed your database backup restored very quickly, what did you do in that scenario. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Solution – Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*)

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier I have published Puzzle Why SELECT * throws an error but SELECT COUNT(*) does not. This question have received many interesting comments. Let us go over few of the answers, which are valid. Before I start the same, let me acknowledge Rob Farley who has not only answered correctly very first but also started interesting conversation in the same thread. The usual question will be what is the right answer. I would like to point to official Microsoft Connect Items which discusses the same. RGarvao https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/671475/select-test-where-exists-select tiberiu utan http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/338532/count-returns-a-value-1 Rob Farley count(*) is about counting rows, not a particular column. It doesn’t even look to see what columns are available, it’ll just count the rows, which in the case of a missing FROM clause, is 1. “select *” is designed to return columns, and therefore barfs if there are none available. Even more odd is this one: select ‘blah’ where exists (select *) You might be surprised at the results… Koushik The engine performs a “Constant scan” for Count(*) where as in the case of “SELECT *” the engine is trying to perform either Index/Cluster/Table scans. amikolaj When you query ‘select * from sometable’, SQL replaces * with the current schema of that table. With out a source for the schema, SQL throws an error. so when you query ‘select count(*)’, you are counting the one row. * is just a constant to SQL here. Check out the execution plan. Like the description states – ‘Scan an internal table of constants.’ You could do ‘select COUNT(‘my name is adam and this is my answer’)’ and get the same answer. Netra Acharya SELECT * Here, * represents all columns from a table. So it always looks for a table (As we know, there should be FROM clause before specifying table name). So, it throws an error whenever this condition is not satisfied. SELECT COUNT(*) Here, COUNT is a Function. So it is not mandetory to provide a table. Check it out this: DECLARE @cnt INT SET @cnt = COUNT(*) SELECT @cnt SET @cnt = COUNT(‘x’) SELECT @cnt Naveen Select 1 / Select ‘*’ will return 1/* as expected. Select Count(1)/Count(*) will return the count of result set of select statement. Count(1)/Count(*) will have one 1/* for each row in the result set of select statement. Select 1 or Select ‘*’ result set will contain only 1 result. so count is 1. Where as “Select *” is a sysntax which expects the table or equauivalent to table (table functions, etc..). It is like compilation error for that query. Ramesh Hi Friends, Count is an aggregate function and it expects the rows (list of records) for a specified single column or whole rows for *. So, when we use ‘select *’ it definitely give and error because ‘*’ is meant to have all the fields but there is not any table and without table it can only raise an error. So, in the case of ‘Select Count(*)’, there will be an error as a record in the count function so you will get the result as ’1'. Try using : Select COUNT(‘RAMESH’) and think there is an error ‘Must specify table to select from.’ in place of ‘RAMESH’ Pinal : If i am wrong then please clarify this. Sachin Nandanwar Any aggregate function expects a constant or a column name as an expression. DO NOT be confused with * in an aggregate function.The aggregate function does not treat it as a column name or a set of column names but a constant value, as * is a key word in SQL. You can replace any value instead of * for the COUNT function.Ex Select COUNT(5) will result as 1. The error resulting from select * is obvious it expects an object where it can extract the result set. I sincerely thank you all for wonderful conversation, I personally enjoyed it and I am sure all of you have the same feeling. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: CodeProject, 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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  • SQLAuthority News – SQL SERVER 2008 R2 Pricing

    - by pinaldave
    I was recently asked question about SQL Server 2008 pricing. I have bookmarked official site here which lists the pricing. Official site: What’s New in SQL Server 2008 R2 Editions Editions Per Processor PricingRetail Per Server Plus CAL PricingRetail Parallel Data Warehouse $57,498 Not offered via Server CAL Datacenter $57,498 Not offered via Server CAL Enterprise $28,749 $13,969 with 25 CALs Standard $7,499 $1,849 with 5 CALs However, I have [...]

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