Simon Sabin


Technical Article

sp_ServerStatus

Have you ever wanted to check that a server exists before using it. Here is a solution that use SQLDMO from within TSQL to get the status of a SQL Server service. It also works for 2000 instances. I have named it sp_ServerStatus for it to be based in master.This returns the status integer and […]

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2002-11-14

610 reads

Technical Article

sp_xml_PrepareDocumentFromColumn

Do you want to use OPENXML with an xml document in a table, this procdure will do it for you.Pass in the SQL that will return the column of data, it will return the document handle which can then be used with OPENXML.ExampleDROP TABLE TabCREATE TABLE Tab (doc ntext)INSERT INTO Tab VALUES ('' + REPLICATE('' […]

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2002-11-14

532 reads

Technical Article

Function and SP to find if file/directory exists

This function and stored procedure can be used to easily identify if a file, directory or parent directory exist. It wraps the functionality of xp_fileExist but gives easy access to the directory and parent directory exist values.To use it the function pass in the file or path and either 'IsFile', 'IsDir' or 'HasParentDir' it will […]

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2002-11-13

3,839 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?

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