All Articles - SQL Authority with Pinal Dave

SQL SERVER – Script level upgrade for database ‘master’ failed – CREATE SCHEMA failed due to previous errors

October 27, 2015

SQL Server troubleshooting topics seem to be the most searched for in this blog. In continuation to this, blog for today is also inspired with one such error message. Some time back I have written below blog which talks about upgrade script mode of SQL Server: SQL SERVER – Login…

SQL SERVER – Taking Backup Without Consuming Disk Space

October 26, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Backup and Restore

Long back, I learned this trick and found an interesting use of it. I totally understand that its very dangerous. Recently I have seen someone getting bitten by this so thought of sharing. Warning: Don’t do this in any production environment The trick here is to take backup on NUL…

Interview Question of the Week #042 – How Does SPACE Function Works in SQL Server?

October 25, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

This question may sound strange but I have personally observed this being asked in one of the interview. Question: How Does SPACE Function Works in SQL Server? Answer: SPACE function accepts one numeric parameter and generates as many as space as a value of the parameter. Observe the output of the…

SQL SERVER – Simple Way to Find Existence of Column in a Table

October 24, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

If you want to check if the column is already available in the table, you can use system views like sys.columns or INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS. Let us create this dataset USE TEMPDB; CREATE TABLE TESTING(ID INT, NAME VARCHAR(100)) Suppose you want to find out the existence of the column named NAME and…

SQL SERVER – How to Identify InMemory Objects Can be Identified in SQL Server?

October 23, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

In-Memory OLTP

When SQL Server introduced InMemory OLTP functionality, it is a great addition to the database. I have seen people use this capability in limited capacity for specific use case scenarios. As a seasoned developer, it is difficult to know what are the consumers of memory. In a recent conversation, I…

SQL SERVER – Interesting Observations Using MONEY Datatype

October 22, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Datatype, SQL PASS

MONEY is one of the data types supported in SQL Server. There are some interesting information about this. Observation 1: Money datatype can accept up to four scale values. DECLARE @money money SET @money='$1,200.45679' SELECT @money which results to 1200.4567 Observation 2: If the scales value exceeds 4 digits, it is rounded to…

SQL SERVER – Database Size Limitation in SQL Express

October 21, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Server Express

I have a tendency to write a number of interview style questions and those are quite popular in this blog. Having said that, sometimes we get asked about tricky questions on a small variety which we might know some of the basics – but sometimes it makes us think twice.…

SQL SERVER – Log Shipping Restore Job Error: The file is too recent to apply to the secondary database

October 20, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Error Messages

If you are a DBA and handled Log-shipping as high availability solution, there are a number of common errors that come that you would over a period of time become pro on resolving. Here is one of the common error which you must have seen: Message 2015-10-13 21:09:05.13 *** Error:…

SQL SERVER – ColumnStore Frequently Asked Queries

October 19, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Index

This blog talks about troubleshooting scenarios in FAQ format when dealing with ColumnStore Indexes inside SQL Server. Use a combination of trace flags, query hints, performance counters, extended events discussed in various blogs to gather relevant data and troubleshoot the problem. Sometimes I have seen people use ColumnStore as a…

Interview Question of the Week #041 – What is a Merge Join?

October 18, 2015

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Joins

Question: What is a Merge Join? Answer: The Merge Join transformation provides an output that is generated by joining two sorted data sets using a FULL, LEFT, or INNER join. The Merge Join transformation requires that both inputs be sorted and that the joined columns have matching meta-data. The user cannot…