Here is a sample of how to DELETE or update all but the first row

-- delete all duplicates but first in each set
WITH cte AS

You will drive yourself insane processing this in days and hours.  By viewing shift times as offsets in minutes from Sunday 12 am everything will become super easy.

CREATE function dbo.MaskWeekdays
(
    @Mask varchar(8)
)
returns
    @DayNumbers TABLE (DayNumber int not null)
as
BEGIN

if SUBSTRING(@Mask,1,1) = 'M' INSERT INTO @DayNumbers (DayNumber) VALUES(2);
if...

Maybe create a function that parses the mask and returns a table of day numbers.  That table can be joined to any query to return just the days you want.

I find this easier to read rather than dozens of "is null" lines:

DECLARE @c1 int, @c2 int, @c3 int, @c4 int;

--SET...

My biggest mistake was 10 years ago when I emailed an employee about 46,000 alerts due to an infinite loop.

-- infinite loop example
DECLARE @t...

Personally, I would never say all clustered indexes are unique.  It is a philosophical issue but I believe Grant's statement will mislead all beginners.  Technically everything in the universe is...

I've seen dozens of sql servers with tempdb set to initial sizes of 8MB data and 1MB log with Autogrowth rates of 1MB and no maxsize set.  This must cause...

Hmm, I think coming up with a creative solution...is too big of an approach.

Humanity advances by creating better and more efficient tools (think hammer versus rock).  When I...

DECLARE @tData TABLE
(
    nArticle_Id int not null,
    nRev_Id int not null PRIMARY KEY,
    dStart datetime2 not null,
    dEnd datetime2 null
);

INSERT into @tData
VALUES

There is a fine line between "trick" and "hack".  This cool function is using lots of side effects which makes me wonder if it might become SQL Server version dependent...

select orderdate from QuartzReportnew where orderdate >= '12/04/2017' AND orderdate < '12/05/2017';

Without any connection to SQL Server it is tough to debug.  About the only thing you have access to is to view the errorlog in notepad.  It will list your...

Give developers a "play" database with no security.  Create a "Development" database where they can only change data while all structural changes must go through you so the team is...

After applying 90 security updates and restarting the host I could not connect to the named instance without specifying the port.  I went back into the "Windows Firewall with Advanced...