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 -
15 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 -
9 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 -
6 Comments
This article covers using the REPLACE function to selectively replace text inside a string in SQL Server. The REPLACE function is easy to use and very handy with an UPDATE statment.
31 March 2010 -
Bill Graziano -
9 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 -
6 Comments
saka writes "Hi there, gurus, I have a really tough question regarding an sql query involving dates. I have a table (links) containing a column with dates (gdate). When I run the following statement I won't get any records at all, just the fields:
SELECT * FROM links WHERE gdate = 2000-11-05
N.B. The table do have a record with the above date and it doesn't work with another date either. The field type is dbtimestamp. Greetings from Sweden"
28 November 2000 -
Bill Graziano -
5 Comments
I'm continually trying to track down what service packs are installed on various SQL Servers I support. I can never find the right support page on Microsoft's site. So here's an article with all the SQL Server version information I can track down. If you know of any older versions or can help me fill out any missing data, please post in the comments and I'll update the article.
29 January 2009 -
Bill Graziano -
24 Comments
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 -
1 Comment
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 -
58 Comments
