All Articles - SQL Authority with Pinal Dave

SQL SERVER – 2005 – Driver for PHP Community Technology Preview (October 2007)

October 16, 2007

In its continued commitment to interoperability, Microsoft has released a new SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP. The SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP Community Technology Preview (CTP) download is available to all SQL Server users at no additional charge. The SQL Server 2005 Driver for PHP is a PHP…

SQL SERVER – Explanation and Understanding NOT NULL Constraint

October 15, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Performance, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Constraint and Keys, SQL Joins, SQL NULL, SQL Scripts

NOT NULL is integrity CONSTRAINT. It does not allow creating of the row where column contains NULL value. Most discussed question about NULL is what is NULL? I will not go in depth analysis it. Simply put NULL is unknown or missing data. When NULL is present in database columns,…

SQL SERVER – Three Rules to Use UNION

October 14, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Performance, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Joins, SQL Scripts, SQL Union clause

I have previously written two articles on UNION and they are quite popular. I was reading SQL book Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server T-SQL in 10 Minutes By Ben Forta and I came across three rules of UNION and I felt like mentioning them here. UNION RULES A UNION…

SQL SERVER – 2005 – SQL Server Surface Area Configuration Tool Examples and Explanation

October 13, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Server Security, SQL Utility

Microsoft has turned off all the potential features of SQL Server 2005 that could be susceptible to security risks and hacker attacks. Many features of SQL Server 2005 i.e. xp_cmdshell, DAC etc comes disabled by default, this makes the vulnerable surface area less visible to potential attacks. The Surface Area…

SQL SERVER – Pre-Code Review Tips – Tips For Enforcing Coding Standards

October 12, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

Database, DBA, SQL Coding Standards, SQL Scripts

Each organization has its own coding standards and enforcement rules. It is sometime difficult for DBAs to change the code following code review, as it may affect many different layers of the application. In large organizations, many stored procedures are written and modified every day. It is smart to keep…

SQL SERVER – T-SQL Script to Add Clustered Primary Key

October 11, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Constraint and Keys, SQL Scripts

Jr. DBA asked me three times in a day, how to create Clustered Primary Key. I gave him following sample example. That was the last time he asked “How to create Clustered Primary Key to table?” USE [AdventureWorks] GO ALTER TABLE [Sales].[Individual] ADD CONSTRAINT [PK_Individual_CustomerID] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [CustomerID]…

SQL SERVER – UDF vs. Stored Procedures and Having vs. WHERE

October 10, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News

SQL Function, SQL Stored Procedure

Read my First Article in SQL Server Magazine – Oct 2007 [Articles are relocated so links are disabled] Reference : Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)

SQL SERVER – 2005 – Sample Example of RANKING Functions – ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK, NTILE

October 9, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks

Ranking Functions, SQL Function, SQL Scripts

I have not written about this subject for long time, as I strongly believe that Book On Line explains this concept very well. SQL Server 2005 has total of 4 ranking function. Ranking functions return a ranking value for each row in a partition. All the ranking functions are non-deterministic.…

SQL SERVER – 2005 – Connection Property of SQL Server Management Studio SSMS

October 8, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL Tips and Tricks

SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Utility, SSMS

Following images quickly explain how to connect to SQL Server with different connection property. It can be useful when connection properties need to be changed for SQL Server when connected. I use this in my company when I connect to one of our servers using named pipes instead of TCP/IP. Let us learn about Connection Property of SQL Server Management Studio SSMS.

SQLAuthority News – Latest Interesting Downloads and Articles

October 7, 2007

Pinal Dave

SQL, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News

Database, SQL Download, SQL White Papers

White Paper: Precision Considerations for Analysis Services Users This white paper covers accuracy and precision considerations in SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services. For example, it is possible to query Analysis Services with similar queries and obtain two different answers. While this appears to be a bug, it actually is due…