Azure-Sql-Db

I’m often wondering about how large different objects in my databases are. There are reports to provide that info, but I often want it in a programmatic form.  One of our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs does just that. It’s ListUserTableAndIndexSizes.

You can see how to execute it in the main image above. The procedure takes these parameters:

@DatabaseName sysname - This is the database to process @SchemasToList nvarchar(max) -> ‘ALL’ or comma-delimited list of schemas to list @TablesToList nvarchar(max) -> ‘ALL’ or comma-delimited list of tables to list @ExcludeEmptyIndexes bit -> 0 for list all, 1 for don’t list empty objects @ExcludeTableStructure bit -> 0 for list all, 1 for don’t list base table (clustered index or heap) @IsOutputOrderedBySize bit -> 0 for alphabetical, 1 for size descending

2018-12-26

SQL Server databases are often littered with indexes that aren’t needed. In many cases, people won’t even remember why they were created in the first place. So I’m often checking out indexes that might be candidates for removal. One of our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs does just that. It’s ListUnusedIndexes.

You can see how to execute it in the main image above. The procedure takes just one parameter:

2018-12-19

Years ago, it was common to need to print checks (cheques) from computer systems. Fortunately checks have now pretty much disappeared in most countries. One of the challenges with printing a check, was that you needed to convert an amount of money into words. Even though checks are on the wane, it’s still important to do that on some contracts, etc.  In our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs,  we added a function NumberAsText to do just that.

2018-12-12

I’m often reviewing existing databases and one of the first things I go looking for is the way they’ve used data types. In particular, I’m keen to know if they’ve used any deprecated data types (ie: ones that will/might be removed at some point).  In our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs,  we added a procedure ListUseOfDeprecatedDataTypes to do just that, and to provide their details in a form that’s easy to consume programmatically if you need that.

2018-12-05

Ever since we’ve been shipping our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs, we’ve been getting interesting requests from users for additions to the tools. Today’s tool is one of the stranger requests but for the odd situation where you need it, I’m sure we will have saved you a lot of work. That tool is NumberToRomanNumerals.

The person who requested it was outputting values that need to go into media trailers, pretty much as you see Roman numerals in the tail end of many movies.

2018-11-28

I’m often checking out what the primary keys are for tables that I’m working on. One of our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs does just that. it’s ListPrimaryKeyColumns.

You can see how to execute it in the main image above. The procedure takes these parameters:

@DatabaseName sysname - This is the database to process @SchemasToList nvarchar(max) - a comma-delimited list of schemas to include (ie: ‘Sales,Purchasing’) or the word ‘ALL’ @TablesToList nvarchar(max)- a comma-delimited list of tables to include (ie: ‘Customers,Orders’) or the word ‘ALL’

2018-11-21

Anyone who’s worked with SQL Server for any length of time has probably run into collation issues. They will have seen something like this:

SQL Server Error: Cannot resolve the collation conflict

In many cases, it will be a difference between the collation in tempdb and their own database, they’ve created temporary tables, and tried to join them to tables in their database. And it goes bang !

While you can fix it in the query by specifying a COLLATE clause, it’s a pain in the neck. If you use temp tables, you really should have this when working with them so your application isn’t dependent upon the server’s collation.

2018-11-14

When I’m working with a SQL Server database, I often need a simple list of all the indexes that are already in place. I want it in a concise form. In our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs,  we added a procedure ListIndexes to do just that, and to provide their details in a form that’s easy to consume programmatically if you need that.

You can see how to execute it in the main image above. The procedure takes these parameters:

2018-11-07

One of the challenges when you have foreign keys in place, is that there are restrictions on what you can do to tables that are the targets of the foreign keys. What’s often needed though is a list of all references to a particular table or set of tables.

In our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs,  we added a function ListIncomingForeignKeys to do just that, and to provide their details in a form that’s easy to consume programmatically if you need that.

2018-10-31

In a previous post, I talked about the ListForeignKeys procedure as part of our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs. That procedure returned one row per foreign key. Sometimes though, you need to process each column of a foreign key separately. So we’ve provided the ListForeignKeyColumns tool to do that.

The tool also detects any keys that are using system-generated names. (We don’t recommend that).

You can see how to execute it in the main image above. The procedure takes these parameters:

2018-10-24