I almost put this in my original post, but I thought since this is a pretty in-depth topic, I would start it anew, with a topic more suited. Basically, after a couple hours of reading, I am starting to grasp things a bit better,but I am still confused. Let me explain. Right now, we backup...more >>

Hi guys I am bulk inserting a file around 25 MB in size. Looks like SQL Server loads the whole data in memory and then does an insert. Is there a way to do this "transactionally" in chunks of smaller size so less memory is used but still the whole insert either fails or succeeds? Thank you! ...more >>

I have recently been asked to take over the duties of our database. I am a systems, network and security guy, so I am really getting into new territory and have a lot to learn (at least for now.) We are using SQL Server 2000 SP4 on Windows 2003 Enterprise. I've been reading through some boo...more >>

Looking for input/advise on a situation my business is having with an application that is posting mission critical financial data from hundreds of remote sites into a SQL Server database. The server side application that posts the received data from the clients into SQL Server does not have an...more >>

Hi. I'm sorry to bother all of you, but I have spent two days looking at code samples all over the internet, and I can not get a single one of them to work for me. I am simply trying to get a stored procedure output parameter to be stored in a variable in my ASP code. The error I am getting is...more >>

hey guys! i'm not able to understand the problem. the situation is like this, i've a table that has before insert/update trigger which checks for some data in some tables and if the data is not found it suppose to throw an error. to get the data, that is inserted into the table, i'm using thi...more >>

How can I write a check constraint for the following situation: If Field1 has a value in it, Field2 must be NULL, and vice versa. Both columns cannot be NULL, and both columns cannot both be non-NULL. Thanks. ...more >>

SQL Server Express Utility questions. 1) I shrank my database. The database files were here: "C:\DATA\Development\MyWork\MW4\Database\" MyWork_40_Data.mdf MyWork_40_Log.mdf I issued the command: C:\>sseutil -shrink C:\DATA\Development\MyWork\MW4\Database\MyWork_40_Data.mdf A n...more >>

I'm trying to find a way so that a stored procedure or user-defined function can return the name of the schema to which it belongs. I'm using object_name(@@PROCID) to get the name, but I don't know the best way to get the schema name. I've tried this, but it doesn't return anything when put...more >>

Hi I have a very simple procedure which uses an update cursor to read data from a table and for each row it updates only one integer field. When I run this sp on Windows XP Professional running SQL Server 2000 SP4 i takes it about 2 mins to complete. However, when I do exactly the same on ide...more >>

I am working with an application using SQL Express 2005. Everything seems to be working ok except, when I restart my system SQL seems to lose it's connection to the database. Once the system has restarted I then have to go into the Management Studio and detach the database and then re-attach i...more >>

Hello, I am having an issue trying to pull selected deata out of some SQL Tables and into a CSV file. I am trying to filter on 3 different fields as seen below in the WHERE statement. If I only use one of these filters at a time it works fine but when I put them together it only seems to us...more >>

Using Profiler to analyze some queries, I found a specific query that was consistently causing SQL Server to perform well over 1.5 million reads and taking over 25 seconds to run. However, when I run the exact same query in Query Analyzer it tells me that it is performing only 4000 reads and ta...more >>

I want to do something similar to SELECT DISTINCT, but I want DISTINCT to act upon only one column of the table, not a concat of the columns. If row 1 and row 2 both contain "Widget" in the Description column, I want all columns from row 1. Thanks. ...more >>

We have a one Database server that is our primary and most important DB for the company. It is the only active DB that is used (besides temp, master). The box: (4)3.0ghz CPU 4gigs RAM (2)36gigs SCSI in Mirror RAID for OS (3)76gig SCSI in RAID 5 for Database Windows Enterprise 2003 Sql...more >>

Hi all I have a stored procedure that's showing me some weird results. The relevant portion of the SP is: create procedure foo as set nocount on declare @version int set @version = (select max(version)+1 from myTable) [...snip...] In myTable, the version field is an int not null defau...more >>

Our servers are using Intel 5160 dual core chips which are 64bit. However we're running 32bit windows and 32bit SQL. Will there be much benefit in moving to the 64 bit versions. I know for a start it will make using memory above 2GB for SQL, but would we see much more of an improvement in g...more >>

Hi, I'm having issues running the SQL server business dev studio to run some import packages. The performance of the application is extrmely slow, to the point where it's almost unusable. Every operation from opening the app, to opening a project and then opening a package takes around a mi...more >>

A cool feature of SQL is that I can use a SELECT statement and pass values into an INSERT -- great for moving a few records between tables. Question: is there a way to use a SELECT to pass values into a stored procedure? -- The Texeme Construct http://you-read-it-here-first.com ...more >>

Hello my name is Tom.. and I am looking for lots of shortcuts about SQL Server.. best practices.. We have SQL 2000 and SQL 2005.. and a lot of Reporting Services.. Thanks -Tom ...more >>

How can I retrieve the logical filenames of the data and log files of a DB without a backup file and without using Enterprise Manager? With a backup file, I know I can get it from "RESTORE FILELISTONLY" but I don't want to have to perform a pointless backup just to retrieve the filenames. I also...more >>

Hi, During our server installation SQL Server 2000 SP4 SQLServerAgent is not started (it was also not needed). But since a few weeks we are using SQL jobs to make a SQL Backup very day My first actions were: SC CONFIG sqlserveragent start=3D auto and NET START sqlserveragent I though...more >>

Does there exist an ODBC or OLEDB/ADODB driver for talking to SQL server over HTTP/port 80? In other words, I want to be able to issue SQL commands (INSERTs, UPDATEs, SELECTs) from a client application to a database that happens to be sitting on a server somewhere that I can only reach via HTTP ...more >>

I need to deploy a database fix (sql DDL Script) to many databases on many servers. All databases are identical in structure. I just need to play the hotfix script on all of the DBs. I don't want to open a seperate window for each DB in Stidio. What mechanisms are available to do this autom...more >>

In a SQL 2005 database is it possible to store the date part only in a table? As their only appears to be datetime data type, which is displaying the default time part as well. ...more >>

Hello All, I'm trying to delete records from a table that are more than 90 days old. I've tried this: declare @date datetime set @date = getdate()-90 select * from table X where cast(coulmn T as sql_variant) > @date and isdate(coulmn T)=1 But, when the query is executed it returns all ...more >>

I have a string variable that will contain driving directions involving many stops. These driving directions contain some special characters, like tabs and carriage return/linefeeds. In addition, the length of the string can be very long (i.e. more than 8000 characters, the limit for varchar). W...more >>

Hello, I am using SQL Server 2000 that came with SBS2003. We need to do some "data scrubbing" of our current accounting data in preperation for a conversion to a new ERP system. I need to pull a table into SQL from Pervasive using ODBC (which is easy enough). Then I need to take the data ...more >>

I guess there is no "FINALLY" in SQL, but I'm wondering how you would go about doing the same thing. I have a bunch of sql in a try block, and I'm raising errors when the user is requesting something that the code cannot do. In the dev phase of the project, I'd like those processes to result in ...more >>

All - I have a nvarchar data type variable @email which equals 'xyz.com' (the single quotes are part of the variable...) When I run a query (DDL not included as I don't think it's necessary for this question) using this syntax I get no results: select * from contact where email like @emai...more >>

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with the order by clause? Thanks.... CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.p_sel_Meters_report @usertype varchar(1), @client_id varchar(20) = NULL, @strSort varchar(40) = NULL AS SELECT meter_contract.contract_id, meter_contract.latest_allowed_meter_input_dt, meter_a...more >>

Hi All I was reading this article http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3632906 in which they have metioned about changing table option using "large value types out of row", to move the column with huge data (Text Datatype in particular) to a seperate page. Is this opti...more >>

Hello, What are the better SQL Server Trade Shows & Conferences? I am looking SQLPASS this month, but my schedule has conflicts. Is that the best show? Are there other good ones? Thanks Gerald ...more >>

I recently migrated from MySQL to SQL Server and ported all my data over without a hitch. The only problem I'm running into is html tags are being encoded into character data and lost on import. I'm wondering if there is a fix or anyway around this? e.g. <br> turns into two boxes ...more >>

I really new to SQL as I am diving head first into it. It is new territory for me, so I am unsure about things. It is a simple question really. What is the proper way to delete a database in SQL 2000? We have a old database on the server that we no longer need or use. It has been asked of m...more >>

After reading BOL, all blogs and white papers I am still confused. I need to know - 1 Justification for XACT_ABORT OFF as default 2 Justification for having this option at all 3 If I have a simple transactions as below ( I have used line numbers for explanation in the pseudo code) With th...more >>

Hi, Can someone help me with a connection problem! I am trying to connect from an XP SP2 machine remotely to a SQL Express database on a 2003 server. Everytime I try to connect via Visual Web Developer, i get the following error: "An error has occurred while establishing connec...more >>