Do you feel embarrassed about Googling answers to problems instead of working them out for yourself? Well don’t: if you’re a working programmer who has to answer for time spent, you’ve got to make use of other people’s work. As long as you don’t believe everything you read, it’s simple efficiency. Continue reading Googling for Fun and Profit
Category Archives: Tools
Sql Server Identity and Membership Functions
On my current research project I’m looking at security. The number of different functions available (some of which are obsolescent) has always been an irritation, so I decided to create a Transact-Sql query that demonstrates the functions and provides links to the documentation. You can use EXECUTE AS LOGIN or EXECUTE AS USER to explore what’s returned for other security principals, always assuming you have the necessary permissions of course. Hope you find it useful. Continue reading Sql Server Identity and Membership Functions
OPENROWSET and BULK INSERT (4)
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Here are some final notes on this topic. I’m going to describe an import I did recently, and hope this may help you decide where OPENROWSET and BULK INSERT could fit into your development activity and what tools you might use.
I was doing an ad hoc load of some data from a small csv file. There was no corresponding table in the database to store this data, and I don’t like doing work for the sake of it, so my first stop was the “Sql Server 2014 Import and Export Data” wizard. I was hoping it would be a simple matter for the wizard to build a table and read the data into it. It crashed with an error which wasn’t very specific. Continue reading OPENROWSET and BULK INSERT (4)
“Test-First” Database Development (2)
I’ve made additions and changes to the GitHub repository for “Test First” development of the database schema. All procedure names will now start with “Test”, so that they’re easier to find in Object Explorer and Intellisense. I’ve added a “TestHeader” stored procedure. You can put this at the top of your TDD script and it’ll add the date/time, database user, Sql Server version etc., to your results.
The spObjectExists procedure has been replaced by TestObjectExists, with the following signature:
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[TestObjectExists] Continue reading “Test-First” Database Development (2)
@i_ObjectType sysname
,@i_ObjectName sysname = Null
,@i_ParentSchemaName sysname = Null --not needed if testing schema's existence
,@i_DbName sysname = Null
AS
“Test-First” Database Development (1)
I’m looking at the practicalities of using Continuous Delivery/Agile techniques where the database is a “high scale” project in Agile terms, and therefore relatively difficult (for more detail about this Agile terminology refer to Scott Ambler’s writings).
As well as thinking about the big issues, I want to start putting together some of the pieces to make it work. I’m doing this in Sql Server 2014 Transact-Sql. I’ve started with automated testing of reporting procedures. There may be utilities that can do this; finding suitable tools is part of the research. It still seems worthwhile having alternatives in Transact-Sql if possible. There’s no purchase or installation to approve, and the code is easy to understand and to edit. Continue reading “Test-First” Database Development (1)
OPENROWSET and BULK INSERT (3)
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This is the promised post about using a Powershell script to inspect large files. It won’t be possible to open a very large file in Excel of course, and some text readers may struggle under the weight of data. This script is an alternative that runs under most if not all versions of Windows, and doesn’t need an installation or a licence. Continue reading OPENROWSET and BULK INSERT (3)
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