Hello my blog readers I have created my own blog with custom url and moved all my existing post there. Please visit https://exploresql.com/ hereafter. Also please subscribe to my new blog if you want to get notified on the new posts Thank you all ..read more

Sometimes you may need to find out the fill rate of each column to know the accuracy of given data. One of the things to know is how many columns do not have any values at all. Let us create the following data set use tempdb GO create table test ( customer_id int, customer_name varchar(100), dob date, address1 varchar(100), address2 varchar(100) ) insert into test(customer_id,customer_name, dob) select 10001,'Madhivanan','1990-01-01' union all select 10002,'Murugan','1991-10-19' union all select 10003,'Kandhan','1984-04-22' Now see the result set ..read more

There was a question on counting number of words in a sentence by my friend One simple method is use while loop as shown below Declare @s varchar(100) set @s=' See how many words this has ' set @s=ltrim(rtrim(@s)) while charindex(' ',@s)>0 Begin set @s=replace(@s,' ',' ') end select len(@s)-len(replace(@s,' ',''))+1 as word_count The result is 6 If the sentence has multiple consecutive spaces, replace them with single space until no more multiple spaces exist. If you count number of spaces and add 1, it gives you the count of words ..read more

When you use sql_variant datatype in sql server 2000, and add data to a table using union all, it will work though datatype of data differs from each other declare @test table(variant_column sql_variant) insert into @test select 'test' union all select 345 union all select getdate() union all select '3245.23' select variant_column from @test But in sql server 2005, it will throw error for datatype mismatch. The proper way of doing this is to explicitely cast any one of the values to be of sql_variant datatype declare @test table(variant_column sql_variant) insert into @test select cast('te ..read more

In SQL Server, only one out of the following four SELECT queries will throw an error. What is it? SELECT 5number SELECT 5.number SELECT 5[number] SELECT 5..number ..read more

Without seeing the table structure,If you are interested in knowing which columns uniquely identify a row in a table, you can use this system procedure Consider the following table create table #testing(id int primary key, emp_name varchar(100)) Note that the column named id is unique by default. Now execute the following system procedure sp_special_columns EXEC tempdb..sp_special_columns '#testing' The result is as shown below ..read more

One of my friends asked me if there is an way to script out the definitions of stored Procedures and Functions using Query. There can be several methods. This is one of the methods that uses BCP utility All you have to do is replace DBname by the actual Database Name EXEC master..xp_cmdshell 'bcp "Select routine_definition from DBname.information_Schema.routines order by routine_name" queryout "C:\scripts.sql" -c' After it runs successfully, the file C:\scripts.sql will have the scripts Note that due to security issues, xp_cmdshell is disable by default. You need to use sp_configure to en ..read more

In SQL Server server, consider the following queries query 1 : select 12a4; query 2 : select 12e4; query 3 : select 12f4; query 4 : select 12g4; Only one query will produce different result than others. Find the odd one out ..read more

I wonder why it is possible to create a table with only one column that too with identity property. Have you ever used such a table? What is the practical usage of table with just only one column with identity property? Create table testing ( test_id int identity(1,1) not null ..read more

Curious to know the result of the following query? All you need to do is, in SQL Server, goto SSMS, set the result mode to Text (Press CTRL+T) and then execute the following code set nocount on select space(17-len(replicate( char(135),no)))+ replicate(char(135),no*2-1) from (select top 10 row_number() over ( order by (select 1)) as no from (select 0 as no union all select 0 union all select 0) as t1 cross join (select 0 as no union all select 0 union all select 0) as t2) as t union all select space(14)+replicate(char(124),5) union all select space(10)+ cast(0x486170707920486F6C69646179 ..read more