Over the last few years I have been a roving SQL Server DBA contractor and tended to work contacts in small and mid-size companies that involved organizing, documenting and then tuning/optimizing existing SQL Servers in those companies. I have noticed one very disturbing truth over the years; no one seems to document anything. In fact, I was usually thankful if I could find something or someone who knew the sa passwords on each SQL Server installation, let alone knew anything else about their setups.

Question: Is it possible to input a text file into SQL Server using T-SQL?

Every now and then we all have to reread something we may already know because frankly if you are like me, you can’t keep everything in your head. I tend to go back over tips and tricks and even database concepts when I have time so I will maybe remember enough about it so when a problem arises I at least know where to go look and find the answer. It is with, that I want to write about my latest re-education attempt.

Over the last few years I have been a roving SQL Server DBA contractor and tended to work contacts in small and mid-size companies that involved organizing, documenting and then tuning/optimizing existing SQL Servers in those companies. I have noticed one very disturbing truth over the years; no one seems to document anything. In fact, I was usually thankful if I could find something or someone who knew the sa passwords on each SQL Server installation, let alone knew anything else about their setups.

Every user expects a search engine on any Web site they visit. Unfortunately, search engines are extremely complex to develop. They require massive amounts of resources and time to implement. Today I’ll show you how to use a MySQL (or any SQL database) to create your own basic search engine.

If you collect and use any kind of data you probably have some kind of organizing system. Whether you use index cards, a filing cabinet, Excel spreadsheets, or some kind of database program, your system should let you add and change data, delete data, and retrieve data, and it should work faster and more efficiently than if you had to do it by hand.

Transact-SQL, an extension to the SQL database programming language, is a powerful language offering many features–a wide variety of datatypes, temporary objects, system and extended stored procedures, scrollable cursors, conditional processing, transaction control, exception and error handling, and much more. We’ll introduce those features later in this chapter in the section “What is Transact-SQL?” Before getting to Transact-SQL specifics, however, we’ll provide some background information that will help you get a feel for the overall database environment in which Transact-SQL operates. After we explain the basic differences between ANSI SQL and Transact-SQL, we’ll jump back to more generalized topics. We’ll cover the genesis of the relational database model and its impact on SQL programming languages. We’ll talk a bit about normalizing data and introduce you to the idea of row-processing and set-processing information technology. We’ll spend a little time talking about the history of SQL Server in general. Finally, we’ll introduce many of the features of the Transact-SQL programming language itself.

Many programmers hit a brick wall in their SQL queries, slowing development to a crawl and causing an over abundance of hair loss and coffee consumption. If you have been staring at the screen with a blank look and a pounding heart, wondering what you did to deserve this mess, you have come to the right place. In this article I will unveil the six most common SQL query errors and give you tips on stress prevention.

Are you at odds with your database? Database programming expert Lee Gould can help.

Are you stuck on a SQL query that just won’t return the results you are looking for? Is a piece of HTML coding just not behaving well in Netscape? Does your JavaScript call you nasty names when you try to run it? Are you trying to write a complex ASP script that simply will NOT do what it is told?

All the hype that once surrounded XML is finally starting to die down, and developers are really beginning to harness the power and flexibility of the language.

In late January, a worm called SQL Slammer shut down a Bank of America ATM network, Continental Airlines’ online ticketing system, and an emergency call center in Seattle as well as cutting off Internet access for millions of PC users worldwide.

Microsoft Corp. has released a 64-bit database and claims that the new system features performance rivaling that of Unix-based systems yet offers greater ease of use and at a lower cost.

A PL/SQL RECORD is a composite datatype. In contrast to a scalar datatype like NUMBER, a record is composed of multiple pieces of information, called fields. Records can be declared using relational tables or explicit cursors as “templates” with the %ROWTYPEdeclaration attribute.

When Microsoft launches its 64-bit version of SQL Server at the end of April, the database will cost the same as the 32-bit version, perform better, and be part of the company’s bid to oust Oracle and IBM’s DB/2 on high-end systems.

Over the last couple of decades we’ve seen a growing gap between database-oriented software developers and in-memory application software developers.

I WAS JUST THINKING of calling Jill the Transmeta Molette when a vibrating sort of call came through on my CDMA Issa enabled cellphone. It was Tarquin from Sacramento and what he said made me go all quivery and jelly-kneed.

SQL Server 2000 was designed to operate as an integral part of the Windows 2000 domain environment. Unfortunately, the new features that best exemplify this integration are rarely taken advantage of. The purpose of this article is to present their overview.

If you’re having trouble keeping track of your business, you may want to have a look at SQL Server 2000 For Developers Part 1. With this product, you can build databases that will help you keep track of, for example, your debtors or creditors. You can perform any number of queries on your sales records. For example, you may want to know how many debtors you have in any one city or, you could pull out from your sales database all those debtors who owe you more than say, $10, 000.00.

If you’re having trouble keeping track of your business, you may want to have a look at SQL Server 2000 For Developers Part 1. With this product, you can build databases that will help you keep track of, for example, your debtors or creditors.

First off, let’s explain a little about the common situation that this “how to” is targeted towards. FoxPro 2.x was a big part of many applications in the early 90′s and those applications ran/run just fine. However, compared to SQL Server 2000, or any other modern DBMS, it’s a joke.