Last issue did a comparison of two implementations of the Rot13 algorithm. As part of the experimental design the data that they worked with was pinned into memory with the DBCC PINTABLE command. Once the table was pinned and the contents forced into memory by a select that covered the whole table, all the table s [ ] The post Pin a list of tables into memory with DBCC PINTABLE. appeared first on…
The YouTube video by Andy Novick demonstrates using a large language model (specifically Grok-3 in April 2025) to generate T-SQL code for a simple ETL task. Novick, a SQL Server consultant, provides a scenario involving moving data between two similar tables with slightly different column names. He shows how he prompted the AI to create [ ] The post Generating T-SQL with AI, a quick demo on…
I responded to a posted question about the EOMONTH() function, which was: if there s an EOMONTH function, why isn t there a start of month function. The reason is that DATEFROMPARTS does the trick. It was added in SQL 2012 along with EOMONTH and DATETIMEFROMPARTS and several other date and date/time functions. It s very simple to [ ] The post There s an EOMONTH function in SQL Server, why no…
This article continues where the last one left off. If you d like and go back and read that one you can find it here. In that article, an updatable view was created to replace an existing table. The table had been named myData and was renamed myDataBaseTable. The view is named myData so that all [ ] The post Using Column Permissions to Protect a Look-up Table. appeared first on Novick Software .
I attended a webinar on Microsoft Databricks yesterday. The only link I have is a zoom registration so you ll have to search. I m sure they ll run it again. The hands-on-lab made it very worthwhile. The rest was marketing fluff. They did a good job of the Lab and I was able to follow along during [ ] The post Azure Databricks KKBox Hands-on-Lab with a comparison to SQL Server appeared first on…
A reader, Rebecca, wrote asking: I have a table that contains a column. That table and column are used throughout our web site. The column is no longer valid and needs to come from another table. I need to quickly do this without having to change all of the code in the web site. Would [ ] The post Using a UDF and Computed Column to replace a Column with a Lookup. appeared first on Novick Software…
There are many reasons for almost every table to have a primary key. This articles UDF locates any user tables that don t have primary keys. Here s the CREATE FUNCTION script: SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON GO SET ANSI_NULLS ON GO CREATE FUNCTION dbo.udf_Tbl_PKeyMissingTAB () RETURNS TABLE /* * Returns names of tables that do not have a [ ] The post Checking for Primary Keys appeared first on Novick…
A while ago I did a presentation about software distribution for Smart Client applications using .Net technologies. Part of the discussion was about the history of software distribution. Fifteen years ago problems were often dominated by DLL Hell and the Windows registry. DLL handling has improved over the years. Windows registry hasn t gone away. It s [ ] The post Read any Windows Registry string…
The previous two articles have been devoted to implementations of the Rot13 cipher. This is a character substitution cipher that is used to obscure text strings in the Window registry and in many web cookies. Both implementations were contributed by Luke Schollmeyer. You ll find the first article here and the second one here. The first [ ] The post Comparing the Performance of Rot13…
This article was about ufn_Rot13 a letter exchange cipher contributed by Luke Schollmeyer. The Rot13 cipher is often used for very basic hiding of text. The Windows Registry uses it and it s also used in many web cookies. ufn_Rot13 uses a loop to compute each letter in the output. This technique isn t that unusual but [ ] The post Alternative Rot13 Implementation. appeared first on Novick Software…