Read a SQL Server error message by separating its number, severity, state, procedure, and line, then preserve the context needed to investigate.
SQL SERVER – Recovery Models and Selection
SQL Server offers three recovery models: full, simple and bulk-logged. Here is when to select each one, based on how much data loss you can accept.
SQL SERVER – LEN and DATALENGTH of NULL Simple Example
A common mistake is checking LEN(@var) = 0 for a NULL value. LEN and DATALENGTH of NULL both return NULL, not zero, as this simple example shows.
SQL SERVER – Cannot Resolve Collation Conflict For Equal to Operation
A collation conflict means character expressions use incompatible comparison rules. I choose the intended rules before applying COLLATE.
SQL SERVER – 2005 T-SQL Paging Query Technique Comparison (OVER and ROW_NUMBER()) – CTE vs. Derived Table
Paging in SQL Server 2005 with ROW_NUMBER: CTE vs. derived table. I compare both methods and show they give the same performance for common queries.
SQL SERVER – Retrieve – Select Only Date Part From DateTime – Best Practice
Selecting the date part and formatting it are different tasks. I keep typed dates for calculations and text for display.
SQL SERVER – Fix : Error : Msg 9514 Xml data type is not supported in distributed queries. Remote object ‘OPENROWSET’ has xml column(s)
Msg 9514 means a distributed query touched an XML column. Why the type cannot cross a linked server, and four ways to get the data across anyway.