The Bit Bucket

Even though I’ve worked with SQL Server for what feels like forever, I still constantly trick myself up with T-SQL commands that give me output that’s different to what I was expecting. This week, it was REPLICATE.

What should the output of the following statement be?

SELECT REPLICATE(‘Hello’, 10000);

If you said the word Hello repeated 10,000 times, or didn’t know at all, read on.

The clue comes if I execute the following statement:

2019-03-29

Blocking is a popular topic in SQL Server. Users are often trying to work out what’s blocking what. In our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs, we have a tool to make that very easy to see. It’s called ShowCurrentBlocking.

ShowCurrentBlocking takes one following parameter:

@DatabaseName (sysname) is the database to report on

It returns two sets of data.

The first rowset is a list of all objects that are currently blocked, and the last query that was run on the connection for each of those objects.

2019-03-28

After some recent upgrade to Windows 10, I’ve found that the headphone volume is way too low for me. I’m using Microsoft LX-3000 headsets, and have always really liked them.

So I was really puzzled what makes the volume so low.

The thing that’s made the biggest difference for me is to enable loudness equalization in the properties of the device. For those that aren’t sure how to do that, here’s a quick set of screen shots:

2019-03-27

Just thought I’d send another plea out to my developer friends:

Please stop making windows fixed size when they don’t need to be.

Take a look at the main image above. The issue isn’t just this one application, it’s a plague. The window:

• Is fairly small
• Is way smaller than the desktop space
• Has no resizing handles
• Is not able to be maximized
• Has content that doesn’t fit in the current window size

Why?

2019-03-27

In the last post, when talking about querying a table, I mentioned that you should always include the name of the schema when you refer to a table. This is called using two-part names. But what are schemas in the first place?

In different database engines (e.g. Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc.), schemas are implemented and work differently i.e. there isn’t a consistent story across the industry. In SQL Server though, the closest analogy that most people would be familiar with, is a folder where you group things that are related in some way.

2019-03-25

You probably already know that I’ve been learning Mandarin for about 8 years now, and have a fascination with Chinese business and technology. Learning the language has made this more approachable for me.  The story of Jack Ma and Alibaba is one of the really interesting aspects of Chinese business today, so I was intrigued to read this book:

Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built by Duncan Hall

I ended up listening to the book via Audible rather than reading it.

2019-03-22

Ever since it appeared back in earlier versions of SQL Server, I’ve normally launched SQL Server Configuration Manager from the Start menu in Windows. But every now and then, with some versions, it seemed to disappear. Now with the latest version of SQL Server installed on the latest version of Windows, it’s not there at all.

While it is possible to put it back in the menu, I think it’s time for us to get used to starting it in a different way.

2019-03-21

In our free SDU Tools for developers and DBAs, we have a number of functions and procedures that help you work with tables and indexes. One question that often arises is about how big tables are. Our tool ListUserTableSizes helps with that.

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) has a report that shows you user table sizes, but people often want a list of sizes that they can get programmatically, perhaps for a monitoring tool, or some sort of automation.

2019-03-20

In the last post, I described what tables were, and then showed how to view their contents using an option in Object Explorer in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

If you’ve ever seen a SQL query of any type, you will have seen one like this:

It says to return all columns from the table, and to return all rows.

Fair enough.

But there are a few things to understand about this simple statement:

2019-03-19

There are many SQL Server events around the world each year, and many are just awesome events. One that has grown non-stop and is currently my pick of these events is SQLBits.

Our UK buddies behind this (currently Simon Sabin, Darren Green, Annette Allen, Jonathan Allen, and Alex Whittles) have created an event that all others should be looking to.

I love the way they combine technical content with fun.

2019-03-18