Popular Articles
Sophie writes "Can you use a Stored Procedure to open a table and copy data to a sort of virtual table (or a records set) so that you can change the values with and not affect the actual data in the actual table. And then return the results of the virtual table? Thanks!" This article covers temporary tables and tables variables and is updated for SQL Server 2005.
17 January 2001 -
Bill Graziano -
13 Comments
This article discusses three common ways to return data from stored procedures:
returning result sets (SELECT statements), using output variables and using the RETURN statement.
Each example includes client-side code (ASP.NET) and server-side code (T-SQL) to
read the results. (This article has been updated through SQL Server 2005.)
9 April 2001 -
Bill Graziano -
0 Comments
Edwin writes "Ok, this may be simple to some, but it sure is a puzzle to me. I want to move a set of data from one table to another table with a similar structure. What I figure was a shady solution: Selecting the data from the source table, then opening the other table and using a loop to populate the destination table. Question: Is there a way I can use just ONE insert statement to do all this? Sort of like incorporating the select statement into the insert statement? If there is one, then please give me some example code." I certainly can do this in one statement (but looks like two). (This article has been updated through SQL Server 2005.)
15 August 2000 -
Bill Graziano -
28 Comments
This article covers all the basics of User Defined Functions. It discusses how (and why) to create them and when to use them. It talks about scalar, inline table-valued and multi-statement table-valued functions. (This article has been updated through SQL Server 2005.)
12 October 2000 -
Doug Carpenter -
3 Comments
This article, submitted by Garth , covers the basics of using triggers. "A trigger is a database object that is attached to a table. In many aspects it is similar to a stored procedure." If you're a developer and not familiar with triggers this article is a great starting point.
30 April 2001 -
Garth Wells -
1 Comment
We'll talk about the basics of cursors. These let you move through rows one at a time and perform processing on each row. (This article has been updated through SQL Server 2005.)
30 August 2000 -
Bill Graziano -
0 Comments
Karla writes "How can I reset an Identity column and not start where it left?" I've been getting quite a few questions about identity columns lately. This article should cover everything I know about them. I'll cover creating them, populating them, resetting them and a few other goodies. (This article has been updated through SQL Server 2005.)
9 March 2002 -
Bill Graziano -
7 Comments
This example combines dynamic SQL, BULK INSERT and the proper handling of double-quotes to solve a client's problem with loading various text file formats into a database. (This article has been updated through SQL Server 2005.)
19 March 2001 -
Garth Wells -
51 Comments
One of the more obscure requirements that a developer may find themselves facing is the need to compare a row with its immediate sibling. One such case is when a list of values needs to be processed to produce a moving average or to smooth a sequence of statistical numbers where their order is important. For example, values lying along a time line. The solution is actually quite simple, but not immediately obvious.
2 April 2008 -
Paul Alcon -
20 Comments
IMHO, the best feature of MS Access is the TRANSFORM statement, used to create cross-tabs/pivot tables. It does all of the work of dynamically generating the cross-tabulation and the summary calculations. T-SQL unfortunately doesn't have this statement, so you're stuck using complicated SQL commands, expensive 3rd party products, or exotic OLAP to make pivot tables...or you can use the following procedure to dynamically create them!
12 March 2001 -
Rob Volk -
195 Comments
