Jacob's Blog

XQuery Lab 65 – Restructuring an XML document using FLWOR

I found this question in this SSC forum thread requesting help to shape the XML document. Here is the input XML document. <Root> <Student>Jhon </Student> <Student> Luka </Student> <Post>1</Post> <Post>2<...

by Jacob Sebastian on 12-09-2011 | 1,225 Views

SQL Server book from Pinal Dave

Pinal Dave is an inspiration for a large number of SQL Server professionals all over the world. He is a great teacher who knows how to explain any complex stuff in very simple words and examples that everyone understands. That is the reason why his blog...

by Jacob Sebastian on 08-08-2011 | 3,322 Views

XQuery Lab 64 – Reading values from an XML column

I got a question in my personal forum this morning requesting help to read values from an XML column. My first reaction was “Well, there is an XQuery lab demonstrating this!”. However, after reviewing the existing XQuery labs, I realized there are no...

by Jacob Sebastian on 07-18-2011 | 3,716 Views

SQL Server–Partitioning FILESTREAM data with RANGE LEFT does not work

One of the problems I came across while writing the partitioning chapter for my FILESTREAM book is that the partitioning does not work correctly with RANGE LEFT. It works as expected when using RANGE RIGHT. Something is wrong with RANGE LEFT and the problem...

by Jacob Sebastian on 06-12-2011 | 2,364 Views

Getting started with SQL Server Wait Types

SQL Server Wait Types are important factors to consider while analyzing performance problems of SQL Server databases. If you notice a particular wait type is occurring too often or for too long, it indicates a problem in most cases. There are several...

by Jacob Sebastian on 03-16-2011 | 2,209 Views

T-SQL Tuesday #016 - Summarizing data using GROUPING SETS()

I have been watching the TSQL Tuesday Blog Parties for quite some time and this is the first time I am participating in it. T-SQL Tuesday #16 is hosted by Jes Schultz Borland and the topic is Aggregation . Aggregating and summarizing data is a common...

by Jacob Sebastian on 03-07-2011 | 4,332 Views

SQL Server – TSQL – Quiz 2011 is here, your chance to win an Apple iPad!

We are back with the first SQL Server Quiz of year 2011 – TSQL Quiz 2011 . The quiz started on 1st March and will run until 31 March 2011. There are 31 questions in this series and a question is published every day. Congratulations to the Winners of SQL...

by Jacob Sebastian on 03-06-2011 | 2,646 Views

Happy Birthday to TSQL Challenges and its younger sibling!

TSQL Challenges – 2nd Birthday Party! TSQL Challenges is turning two years old today. We did the first TSQL Challenge two years ago - on 27th February 2009. In two years, TSQL Challenge has grown up with the help of several volunteers and TSQL enthusiasts...

by Jacob Sebastian on 02-27-2011 | 2,019 Views

What is SQL Server Juneau?

“ Juneau ” is the code name given to the new SQL Server development environment which is based on Visual Studio shell. It is officially named “SQL Server Developer Tools” (SSDT) which is expected to provide a wide range of functionalities that are currently...

by Jacob Sebastian on 02-07-2011 | 3,356 Views

What is SQL Server Crescent?

Project Crescent is a new data visualization tool that will be part of the next version of SQL Server – code named Denali. “Crescent” is the code name given to the new reporting/visualization tools and it looks like the name may change by the time the...

by Jacob Sebastian on 02-04-2011 | 3,734 Views

SSRS – How to find all the reports that use one or more given columns?

In the past I have published a few queries that allows you to query SQL Server Reporting Services database – to retrieve specific information about various reports deployed in the Reporting Server Instance. Recently, I got a question in my ASK forum who...

by Jacob Sebastian on 01-21-2011 | 7,042 Views

Inviting everyone to participate in the .NET Quiz! An Apple iPad Waiting

After the recent SQL Server Quiz we got several requests to start a .NET quiz that follows the similar model. We have been working hard for the last couple of months and finally the .NET Quiz is Ready. The SQL Server Quiz was our first attempt in this...

by Jacob Sebastian on 01-01-2011 | 1,950 Views

Storing TSQL Queries in a table without losing the formatting

One of the applications we worked on recently had to deal with storing TSQL queries in a table and executing them based on some business logic. It was not a very complicated project, but the development team had a tough time with the formatting of the...

by Jacob Sebastian on 12-17-2010 | 4,017 Views

XQuery Lab 63 – Deleting empty elements from an XML document

I saw this question on the forum today and after writing an example that demonstrates this, I thought of including it as part of the XQuery Labs . Here is the sample XML we need to process. <userdata pageid="page9" annotationSetId="80">...

by Jacob Sebastian on 12-14-2010 | 3,330 Views

SSMS Enhancement in SQL11 (Denali) – Support for Code Snippets

Code snippets allow you to quickly insert code templates into your query window to perform common TSQL tasks. By using a keyword short cut you can invoke the code snippet window and select the desired code snippet. This will copy the pre-defined code...

by Jacob Sebastian on 11-20-2010 | 2,751 Views