A Function Gotcha with the Use of an Asterisk
This article describes and demonstrates the problem of using asterisk to select all fields from a table within a table function. (from Apr 2008)
2009-09-11 (first published: 2008-04-30)
18,686 reads
Stephen Lasham
- Interests: Photography
Converting Hexadecimal String Values to Alpha (ASCII) Strings
In an interesting exercise in data conversion, Stephen Lasham brings us a nice article on basic manipulations.
2008-04-25 (first published: 2007-05-17)
12,933 reads
Finding Gaps in a Sequential Number Sequence
Do you use identity values? Do missing values ever cause problems? Maybe you need to look for missing invoices? Stephen Lasham brings us a technique for finding those missing values in a sequence.
2006-04-03
14,693 reads
Reporting a menu structure using a recursive UDF
Selecting a menu structure from a series of tables is pretty easy. If you bound the number of levels in the menu. However if you have potentially variable numbers of levels. Stephen Lasham brings us a new piece on using recursion to select the data.
2005-10-11
8,822 reads
Extracting a String Within Delimeters - Part 2
T-SQL can be a complex language to work within and code solutions with. Author Stephen Lasham brings us a twist on his last solution of extracting a string from within another string. Read about his method of working with strings in T-SQL.
2004-09-13
7,862 reads
Extracting a String From Between Two Delimiting Characters
String manipulation in SQL Server or T-SQL can be a challenage. There are multiple ways to accomplish every task and often learning a new one may spark some creativity in yourself or teach you a better way to accomplish an old task. New Author Stephen Lasham brings us his technique for extracting a string that is delimited from within a larger string. Something I'm sure we'll all have use for in the future.
2004-06-14
23,175 reads
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Question of the Day
Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers