The SQL Delete Statement
New Author! Narayana has some ideas on the delete statement and how you can have a fall back plan if something goes wrong.
2003-07-22
19,605 reads
T-SQL
Group numbering
An easy way to organize the data by groups of sequential numbers. This is very helpful for splitting up a large file into numerous smaller files. You can then create the smaller files by filtering for the row number per file.
2003-07-09
230 reads
Load data from text file with variable columns
This script loads from a formatted text file (E.g. tab delimited) with variable number of columns using BULK INSERT. For instance, the file may have any number of columns and next load (seconds later) the same file may have a different number of columns. This script reads the first line (column names) extracting the names […]
2005-03-01 (first published: 2003-06-30)
990 reads
Understanding the difference between IS NULL and = NULL
This article by James Travis details the differences between IS NULL and = NULL. He also discusses the ANSI_NULLS setting.
2017-08-18 (first published: 2003-06-17)
143,608 reads
Show all User-Defined Datatypes for all Databases
This procedure displays all user-defined datatypes in all databases on a server. Another example of the power of dynamic T-SQL, this procedure dynamically generates SELECT statements for the systypes tables in each database and UNIONs them together so that they display in one recordset.
2003-05-30
167 reads
Table Pivoting revisited
A lot of table pivoting scripts use cursors to reach the desired results, but SQL scripting was developed to be utilized in a data set environment rather than sequential step-thru scripting.Normally, there are 3 types of Table Pivoting - 1) column explicit 2) column implicit and 3)single column. COLUMN EXPLICIT will place the row value […]
2003-05-29
428 reads
Much better way to "Get name of current database"
Use SQL's own method to get the current DBName, no function needed.
2003-05-27
1,096 reads
Nesting Stored Procedures
We're pleased to announce that Robert will be writing for us each month - generally on stored procedures, but occasionally on a different topic. This article discusses how nesting stored procedures works and how to use @@NextLevel. Good reading! If there is a stored procedure topic you'd like to see covered, add a comment to the article or email us at articles@sqlservercentral.com
2007-10-02 (first published: 2003-05-23)
53,535 reads
How to retrieve roles from a Database
If you have environment where you restrict access to database objects based on user roles and if you have a lot of databases on different servers in the same domain. The following script can generate roles from a given database in a format that can be used to create roles on different servers where the […]
2003-05-14
196 reads
How to get ColumnNames, datatypes and length
Very frequently I used to use sp_help to find column names, datatypes and length of datatypes. Sp_help outputs a lot of data which i really don't require to see. so I devised this script
2003-04-30
100 reads
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Forums
AllocationType as ROW_OVERFLOW_DATA
Hello, I inherited a number of tables with like 20-30 column using nvarchar(256) in...
is it true we cant debug c# scripts in ssis anymore under vs
Hi, i'm running vs2022. I'm trying out a c# script that i'd like to...
Question of the Day
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers