Fetch the most used/retrieved rows from a table

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Fetch the most used/retrieved rows from a table

ramu.valleti

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December 8, 2009 at 11:44 pm

#214517

Hello There,
I've a scenario where i want to retrieve the records in a table which are retrieved/useed mostly...
Let me be more clear..
I've few facts and dimension tables, users write or execute some queries and retrieve the data based on their requirement.
What i've to do is i've to write some queries and retrieve data say from one dimension table to display which records/rows are being used mostly.
Guys, please let me know whether this is possible in SQL Server 2008 or not, even if there is any workaround to achieve this, please let me know.
Regards,
Ramu
Ramu
No Dream Is Too Big....!

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Jack Corbett SSC Guru Points: 184394 More actions · Answer 1

I don't know of anywhere in SQL Server (Database Engine) where there are statistics for what rows are accessed most often.

Jack Corbett
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Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398909 More actions · Answer 2

I can't think of a single way of doing this either. Most of the DMV's that I can think of that might relate to this only store aggregate information, so you can't get down to the row level information that you'd need for something like this.

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ramu.valleti SSCrazy Points: 2229 More actions · Answer 3

Thanks a lot Jack Corbett and Grant Fritchey for your quick response...:)

I know even if there is way, it might be expensive interms of performance or additional load load on the database...but still If you come across anything related to this please share with us...

Thanks a lot once again...!

Ramu

Ramu
No Dream Is Too Big....!

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004406 More actions · Answer 4

I'm with Grant and Jack on this one... I don't know of a way to do this without changing the queries.

IF you wanted to change the queries, change them from SELECTs to UPDATEs. Update each row to be returned by adding one to a new counter row and use OUTPUT to provide the required return as if a SELECT had been done.

Of course, that won't help if people have access to the table directly.

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Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004504 More actions · Answer 5

There's no record within SQL of how often a row is selected. If you need to do this, then you're going to have to make some changes to your app so that, when a user retrieves X rows, the app writes back to the DB that these rows have been used.

Is going to be murder on performance unless done very, very, very carefully

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
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