How easy or difficult to write dynamic SQL ? TIP#110

This is one of the challenge for most of the developer to write dynamic SQL. Generally we follow the approach of string concatenation.

This seems very easy but we need to cast the  parameters in VARCHAR and sometimes we stuck in single code.

I am sure this happened with all of us. 

Let’s understand first a straight forward way which we (most of  us) are  using.

In example I am using person table of Adventureworks database and it is just a simple query  which provide person row according to primary key.

Now the above query is OK but it can be write in much better way with one of the SQL server in build stored procedure which is sp_executeSQL. This is one of the best way which have certain advantage which will discuss in next tip. Now see how we can write above query in much better way

DECLARE @BusinessEntityID   INT
DECLARE @DynamicSQL NVARCHAR(200)
DECLARE @Parameters NVARCHAR(100)

SET @BusinessEntityID = 1
SET @Parameters =N'@ParameterBusinessEntityID INT'

SET @DynamicSQL = N'SELECT * FROM [Person].[Person] WHERE BusinessEntityId = @ParameterBusinessEntityID '
EXECUTE sp_executesql @DynamicSQL, @Parameters,  @ParameterBusinessEntityID =@BusinessEntityID

If you see above query, you will find we are not using any type conversion the statement is clear.

This is one of the best way to write dynamic query which is not only increase your statement’s readability but also increase performance of your query with certain amount.

Which we will discuss in next tip.

I hope now you are eager to use this and replace all your old fashion dynamic queries.

Please do post your feedback.

Enjoy !!!

RJ !!!

An interesting setting for NULL but don’t use it for future TIP #109

As we discussed earlier in TIP#103 for NULL in which I shared that we have to take extra care for NULL.

Now in this tip I would like to share one of the interesting setting for NULL. Although it is just for knowledge but don’t use it because it is deprecated in future version and by default you this setting is always on.

Still you are thinking for which setting I am talking about.

So , I am talking about “CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL”  . Let’s understand it by following example . By Default CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL is ON which means if anything added to NULL will be null as discussed earlier in our tip #103

Now, see what happens when we do it OFF.

So, We clearly saw in above image  when we set the CONCATE_NULL_YIELDS_NULL property to OFF it dissolved the NULL property.

My take on this property is that we should avoid it don’t try to make it OFF explicitly because if we do this then we explicitly breaking some hidden business rules.

I hope you will like this post.

Enjoy !!!

RJ !!

A big issue when try to Alter user define table type structure TIP #108

 

I hope all of you aware of  User define table type (a table value parameter) which we discussed earlier in TIP #57.

Now recently one interesting incident happened. We are using a user define table type in few stored procedure and due to some business requirement change we need to change /update data type of a particular column from TINYINT to SMALLINT.

Now this change was seems very simple you just need to change a column’s data type  but when you are going to do this, you will find this is not pretty straight forward (if the User define table type is referred in different tables).

If you go through standard steps you need to follow below steps (for  a column data type change)

1) Create a new User define table  type

2) Replaced old User define table  type with new user define table type in each stored procedures

3) Remove old User define table type.

And , I would like to say a big thanks  Mr.Norlado  who post an alternative on stackoverflow

below is the alternative steps

1) Rename the existing table type with following command

EXEC sys.sp_rename 'dbo.StudentTableType', 'zStudentTableType';

2) Create Table type with your  changes which you want

CREATE TYPE dbo.StudentTableType AS TABLE(
    StudentId INT NOT NULL,
    Name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    ClassId SMALLINT -- changed from tinyInt to smallint
);
3. Update the reference in sql entities

DECLARE @Name NVARCHAR(776);

DECLARE REF_CURSOR CURSOR FOR
SELECT referencing_schema_name + '.' + referencing_entity_name
FROM sys.dm_sql_referencing_entities('dbo.StudentTableType', 'TYPE');

OPEN REF_CURSOR;

FETCH NEXT FROM REF_CURSOR INTO @Name;
WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0)
BEGIN
    EXEC sys.sp_refreshsqlmodule @name = @Name;
    FETCH NEXT FROM REF_CURSOR INTO @Name;
END;

CLOSE REF_CURSOR;
DEALLOCATE REF_CURSOR;

4. Now drop the renamed table type

DROP TYPE dbo.zStudentTableType;

This 4 steps helped me a lot.

I hope this may help you as well.

Enjoy!!!

RJ!!!

An interesting way of aliasing TIP#107

I recently gone through something and found a unique way of aliasing. I thought it must be share so other techies also aware of it (or might be you already aware of it).

See below example

SELECT *
FROM (VALUES ('Rajat',30),
             ('Sandeep',40),
             ('Sunil',35),
             ('Shreya',50),
             ('Virendra',45)) AS T(Name,Runs)

Now when you it  you will get following result

I hope you may like this tips.

Enjoy!!!

RJ!!!

A simple way for consistency TIP #106

 

Whenever we develop application of maintain application we define sets of rules or policies  like naming convention , data type, database & SQL SERVER properties (like which property should be unable or disable)  but the problem is to cross check or to enforce these properties is very tedious.

To enforce the policies SQL SERVER provided a great feature which is Policy Based Management.  This is the feature which helps you to not only write the policies or rules but also enforce and cross check whether those rules or policies is followed in your environment or not.

Although these feature is mainly for A DBA but I think it is good for a everyone who love SQL Server.

Now let me share an example which will help us to better understand Policy Based Management.

So to begin with  firstly we have to open the Policy Based Management’s interface. Which we can get in Management folder in SQL SERVER’s object explore window. (You can see below yellow highlighted)

So when you expand the Policy Management in Management feature  You will see 3 different folders which are facets , condition and policies.

So there are  around 84 in build facets which is basically properties for different conditions.

Conditions are basically simple check applied using facets.

Policies are created on condition which will enforce once it created.

Below I am creating policy to check table who has row count =0 (Little bit odd) .You can try with stored procedure name not started with sp_ (will be good start as well).

So , Now create a simple condition by right click and choosing menu New condition

You will get following screen just add condition

We are creating a simple condition which will check the table which has RowCount is 0.

Once you created this condition you will get condition in conditions folder.

Now once condition is created we have to create policy. To create policy we have to right click on policy and select new policy.

When you click the new policy you will get following screen

Now we can add check Condition which we have created as shown in below figure. We can apply policy against target Like in below snap we want policy against every table for IndiandotnetDB

We can set evaluation mode according to our need.

Once you saved the policy we can run it any time.

We can evaluate policy by right click Evaluate as shown in below figure

When we run the policy we will get following result

So , If you see above highlighted row which means a table contain  Row Count.

I hope with above steps you understand a basic way to create Policy Base Management concept.

Policy based management is surely a great tool to manage  database.

Please feel free to give a chance whether you are DBA or not.

Enjoy PBM !!

Happy learning !!

RJ

Enjoy with new release of Visual Studio and SQL SERVER :)

Dear All,

Although, I am bit late to share this information and might be possible most of you people aware of this.Recently Microsoft released Visual Studio 2015

and SQL SERVER 2016 CTP. Not needed to say that there are various awesome features in both build.

You can download latest Visual Studio 2015 from below link

https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs

and SQL SERVER 2016 CTP from below link

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-sql-server-2016 

In future post you will be find tips & tricks related to SQL SERVER 2016 & Visual Studio 2015.

Enjoy Learning !!!

Thanks

RJ

Merge statement- A simple way for DML TIP#105

When, I first saw this statement a Hindi proverb  come to my mind which is “1 teer 2 nishane” . The meaning of this proverb means a single bow which hit two different aim in one shot.

So let me explain “Merge” statement in more detail. With the help of this Merge statement we can do insert ,update and delete with a single statement.

Let’s understand this by an example. Suppose we have two tables Source and Target as shown in below figure

Now these tables will have some data so lets write query to insert some pre pop data

Now what we want follow things

1) if  employeeId of source and target tables are not matched and if employee name starts with “S” in the source table  then insert the value in target table.  (means insert Sunil & steve’s records from source to destination table)

2) If employeeId of source and target tables are matched then update the Employee name from source table to target table  (if any record matched then update the employee name which not the case with current data)

3) If employeeId of source and target tables are not matched and Employee name in target table starts with “S” then delete that row from target table. (So Sunidhi’s row will be deleted from target table)

Let’s write Merge Statement  for all the 3 above work.

 

Now you observed that there is one more statements which is written explicitly apart from the condition which is OUTPUT clause which helps us to determine what operation is performed.

When you run this you will get following output

Now see the actual data in both the table.

 

So, a simple merge statement is doing all 3 operations like update, insert ,delete.

I hope this tip will help you some where.

Enjoy !!

RJ!!!

Proper Aliasing will help you somewhere TIP#104

Recently, When we were delivering session on “SQL SERVER” one of the persons asked why we require Aliasing so I thought this might be question in everyone’s mind.

So lets start with couple of well know statements then we will see the actual problem where we need it explicitly.

There are two type of aliasing we can do a column aliasing & table aliasing.

Aliasing might help you in readability of stored procedure or function. It helps when you retrieving any calculated or derived column which need in your application so lets starts with some example.

if you see below example we are calculating a column but it does not have column name so fetch this specific value is very difficult so we require column Aliasing here

So as you saw above figure the calculated column is with name “No column name” we can not retrieve it easily so we require aliasing

Now ,lets talk about the table aliasing. So table aliasing help you in readability and it is helpful when you require self join or same table is required in join.

Lets see in below example we did a self join and we required aliasing

The aliasing will be helpful when same table join is required multiple times.

I hope this tip might helpful to someone.

I would appreciate if you provide you inputs as well where we can utilize aliasing.

Enjoy!!!

Th

RJ!!!

It is OK its NULL only TIP #103

 

We always take NULL very lightly. Like if we are designing database then whether it is necessary or not we allow the data field to accept null.We think it will not affect anything.

Actually , at some point this is not always true.

According to Microsoft NULL is an Unknown value. It is not EMPTY & ZERO. It is just unknown.

Now according to my experience NULL is very sensitive and should be handle with care.

While we are designing the database and in a particular table if a field can not be null according to business rule then please don’t allow NULL in that field for data consistency.

For example if we have a StudentEnrollment table and in the StudentEnrollment table  we have reference of StudentId which is primary key of StudentId and that can not be NULL then please don’t make the field null able.

Let me share some more interesting facts

1) Two null value not equal :-  Let me explain it with an example

Suppose I have tblStudentSource table  which has different columns and a course column which have some null values  as shown below

Now see below snap where we are comparing the null value course column. You will find in below snap that there is no result while we have null value in course

2)  Use IS NULL or IS NOT NULL  to handle null able column:-  If a column is null and you want to show all the columns which are null then instead of comparing NULL value with column as shown in above figure use IS NULL as shown in below figure

In similar way if we want result which not have null course then we can write below query

3) Handle NULL carefully with IN clause

Let me explain with an example so we have 2 tables which are tblStudentSource (as shown in above (image 1) and another table which is tblCourse as shown in below figure

Now if you see we have course column in tblStudentSource table which has values similar to tblCourse’s course column and tblStudentSource’s course column contain some NULL values

Now suppose we wrote following statement and expecting that it will return all the course which are in tblCourse

Oh !! it is not returning any course. The reason behind it is NULL is not handled properly. Now to get desire result we have to write following statement

 

So , be always careful when your column has null values.

I hope the above points might help you somewhere.

Enjoy !!!

Keep learning & Keep Sharing !!

Thanks

RJ

Bulk Copy Program (BCP)–A simple way to export data in a file TIP#101

Let’s consider a scenario where the end user require a CSV file of all the records in a table then BCP is one of the simplest way.

BCP stands for Bulk copy program. By the name you got the feeling of lots of data .

Although, there are various options & parameters available with BCP but here we will talk about simple one .

To understand it more clearly lets consider an example.

I have a database with name “IndiandotnetDB” and in this database I have a table with name tblStudentSource which having few records as shown in below figure

Now, the objective here is to export all the data which is in tblStudentSource table to a CSV file.

to achieve this we will use BCP command.  We are running BCP from command prompt as shown in below figure

Although there are various other options available with BCP command but for current post I choose simple one .

Now let me explain the command

BCP IndiandotnetDb.dbo.tblStudentSource OUT d:\File\output\sampleExport.csv –S . –T –c

so in above command “IndiandotnetDB” is my database

“dbo” is schema

“tblStudentSource” is  a table whose data need to be export

OUT – here out stands for export (export the table or query data)

“D:\File\output\” is folder where I want exported file

“sampleExport.csv” is file name which will be created by BCP and contains entire records after execution of BCP command

-S is stands for server I used “.” for localhost we can provide instance name as well

-T is for trusted connection (we can use – U for username – P for password)

-c is stands for character data type if you are not using this then you have to provide data type for each fields of output query result

Below is the output of the command which we run “ a sampleExport.csv file with all the records”

I hope this simple post will help you some where. I will share more details about BCP command in coming post.

Thanks

RJ!!

How to hide my SQL Server instance in network ? TIP #99

 

In TIP #70  we saw how to find all the running SQL SERVER instance in a network or a machine.

to revise see below image.

This tip is just opposite to tip #70 you don’t want that your co-worker see your SQL Server instance running on your machine machine. (There are several reason behind this   and security is one of the most valuable aspects)

To achieve this you just need to do a very simple setting. Just follow below steps

1) Open “SQL SERVER Configuration Manager”

2) Once the screen is open right click on the instance which you want to hide from network (under  SQL SERVER network  configuration ) as shown below

3) When you click on Properties menu you will get a new screen as shown below

You need to set the value of Hide Instance option to Yes.

4) Click on apply button and restart the services.

Great , We achieved it. Isn’t it simple ?

I appreciate your feedback.

Enjoy!!!

RJ!!!

I am not able to access my SQL server instance on another computer tip #98

 

On last Friday , one of my colleagues had some issue related to accessing of SQL Server instance of database server machine in the office through his machine. I think this is generalized problem and might be faced by many of us.

So to begin with  default port of SQL SERVER is 1433 , I am sure most of us aware of this.

If we are facing such issue then most of the time it means port 1433 is not opened on SQL SERVER instance machine.

To open the port 1433  we have to follow below steps 

1) Open firewall (using Firewall.cpl command ) as shown in below figure

2) You will get below screen now click on Advance setting option as shown in below screen

3) You will get a new screen. In this we need to add a new rule for for “Inbound” & “outbound” by clicking the respective navigation menu. When you will click on “Inbound rule or outbound rule you will below screen. Now click New Rule link as highlighted below

4) When you click the New rule link you will get a new screen. Now in this screen select port radio button and click on next button 

5)Now add specific local port 1433 as shown in below figure 

When you click next button you need to choose option “Allow the connection” and you are good to go by click Next button

 

These same steps you have to follow for Inbound & outbound rules and your SQL port 1433 will be open and you will be able to access your sql server instance from other computer machine.

I hope this tips might resolve your problem too.

Enjoy!!!!

RJ!!!

How to send E-mail/E-mail with Attachments in SQL Server TIP #97

 

In last post, TIP#96 We have configured Database E-mail. Now in this post we will see how to send mail in SQL SERVER.

Sometimes we need to send mail for different requirements like

1) Notification mails like  data inserted /updated/deleted successfully

2)Send data reports like no of amount earned, failed transaction  etc.

for this SQL SERVER provides us stored procedure “sp_send_dbMail”.

The “SP_send_dbmail” has various parameters below are some important parameters like

@profile_Name : The profile which will use to send mail

@Recipients : To whom the mails need to be send

@body : This is message body

@Subject: Subject of the mail

@Query : SQL statement which you want to share

To send a simple E-mail  we can write following statements

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail
    @profile_name = 'IndiandotnetMailSmtp',
    @recipients = 'rajatjai@gmail.com',
    @body = 'Mail sent successfully.',
    @subject = 'Mail via SQL SERVER ' ;

We can also send a query result either inline text format or html format or as a  attachment

Below query will send mail to me with count of students of a class. the below mail is simple text format mail

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail
    @profile_name = 'IndiandotnetMailSmtp',
    @recipients = 'rajatjai@gmail.com',
    @query = 'SELECT COUNT(1), Class FROM IndiandotnetDB.dbo.tblStudent GROUP BY class' ,
    @subject = 'Mail via SQL SERVER ' ;

The above mail can also be send mail as a attachment with following command

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail
    @profile_name = 'IndiandotnetMailSmtp',
    @recipients = 'rajatjai@gmail.com',
    @query = 'SELECT COUNT(1), Class FROM IndiandotnetDB.dbo.tblStudent GROUP BY class' ,
    @subject = 'Mail via SQL SERVER ' ,
    @attach_query_result_as_file = 1 ;

We can add @body_format = 'HTML' and use various HTML tag in query or body parameters

A part from this you can cross check E-mail status whether mail is sent or not if it is not sent the what is the reason.

Below are the statements which can help to cross check mail sent status

-- Show all the emails

SELECT * FROM msdb.dbo.sysmail_allitems

-- Show all the  sent mails
SELECT * FROM msdb.dbo.sysmail_sentitems

-- show all the un sent mails
SELECT * FROM msdb.dbo.sysmail_unsentitems

-- show all the failed mail with reason
SELECT * FROM msdb.dbo.sysmail_faileditems

I hope this might help you somewhere.

Enjoy!!

RJ

How to Configure E-mail in SQL Server Step by Step–TIP #96

 

For different reason we need to send database report , data and other SQL Server database related stuff using E-mail . SQL  Server provides E-mail functionality using “Database Email” feature. We can setup any E-mail  in few simple steps.

Let’s follow below steps

Step 1:- Open “Management” option of object Explorer in SQL SERVER  management studio.

You will find “Database Mail” option. now click on configure Database mail option as shown below

 

Step 2:- When you click on Configure database mail you will get below wizard screen

Step 3:- Click on next button then you will below screen which is basically provide you option to setup or manage existing profile . In our case we are going to create a fresh database mail so let the first default option as is as shown in below figure and click on next button

Step 4:- You will get below screen. Just give a unique profile name and click on ADD button which is highlighted

Step 5: Now this is the main setting of mail “SMTP settings”

In this screen we have to give proper E-mail address, password , SMTP server name & Port number. In below screen I used gmail settings for a my gmail account. You can use any email address

Step 6:- Once you assure that everything is perfect in above screen then click on OK button. When click Ok button this SMTP profile will be saved and you can find in below screen now click on next button

Step 7:-  If you want you can make this profile as public default profile means default this profile will be use if someone wants to send mail from sql database. Now click Next button till the end of wizard you will following screens.

 

Step7:- Now click on Finish button then your setting will be actually saved in database and below screen will appear.

Now Once you close the above screen you are good to go.

You can test this by sending a test mail to your account using following screen

I hope this steps may help you to setup database email.

Enjoy Database E-mail and try to send a test mail to me also.

Enjoy !!

RJ